


love how we've been carrying on

by camerasparring



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Anal Fingering, Anxiety Attacks, Audra Loves to Roast Bill, Blow Jobs, Bottom Richie Tozier, Character Study, Dry Humping, Emetophobia, Felching, First Time, Friends to Felching, Internalized Homophobia, Kissing, Kissing Trauma, M/M, Masturbation, Miscommunication, Mutual Masturbation, Panic Attacks, Phone Sex, Porn, Service Top Richie Tozier, Sexual Repression, Sharing a Bed, Slow burn in a way, Snowballing, Trauma, but like in spirit, internalized ableism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-12
Updated: 2021-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-20 11:53:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 20,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30004470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/camerasparring/pseuds/camerasparring
Summary: Do anything, says a voice in his head, harsh and loud; his younger self screaming at him; Richie putting a hand to his arm and reminding him: he can be brave.Do anything to let him know you want this. That you wanthim.So he keeps moving until he’s touching Richie, grabbing his wrist, sliding his hand up the sticky curve of Richie’s arm, and Richie—he must know. Eddie’s never been this bold with him, never touched him so intentionally or deliberately and all he can hear now isyou’re braver than you thinkand it’s like everything is suddenly clicking into place.And then, as soon as it came on, everything is eclipsed by a churning, painful nausea roiling angry through his stomach.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 36
Kudos: 97





	1. breakin' but I couldn't get the pieces apart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [reigenagain](https://archiveofourown.org/users/reigenagain/gifts).



> This started as a PWP for the lovely Rissa and turned into [gestures at what will be 40k of an Eddie repression character study] this. 
> 
> This _should_ be posting regularly, I have a lot of it done, but I am impatient and could not wait to post it. 
> 
> Please be warned that this fic has a lot to do with Eddie working through trauma. Trauma related to his sexuality, related to sexual activity in general, to kissing, to the leper he experiences in both the book and movies, and just generalized anxiety and panic attacks. He pukes and/or almost pukes a lot. He has a lot of negative internalized emotions about his inability to be a "satisfactory" sexual partner for Richie, but hey, he's been through a lot and he's working on it. 
> 
> Thanks to everyone and their endless support on this monster fic. Hope you enjoy it, Rissa!

It starts almost as soon as they’re out of the quarry and back at the Inn. Somehow, Eddie just doesn’t see it for what it is. 

Eddie bathes himself in the dirty water and feels no pain, other than the dull pounding in his shoulder where he had been cut, but even that’s nothing compared to the joy emanating from all of them. Pain had never brought such a sense of satisfaction from him, not like when he’s with his friends; and that, in itself, is almost enough to convince himself it would fade it away permanently. 

Then they arrive back at the Townhouse, and Richie looks at him with a happy glint in his eye, and Eddie’s whole body lights up like Rockefeller Center.

There’s no use pretending he didn’t feel _something_ when he arrived at the Jade two days earlier, but there were other pressing issues at hand that overwhelmed it. Now that they’re free, now that they’re safe and together and happy, now that they’ve taken down the intergalactic, extra-terrestrial _whatever_ -dweller who had terrorized them, the first thing that hits Eddie is exhaustion. And then the desire. 

It burns in him. Fills him up and swirls in him with absolutely no release. Everything sets him on fire, even stupid, unassuming things that no one else would notice. The way Richie held his glass, or motioned with his long arms, or the press of his ankle under the table, no matter how unintentional. It didn’t matter to Eddie’s pleasure center, no. He had squirmed in his chair and resolutely shoved it out of his mind as an intense overreaction. Chalked it up to a certain familiarity with these people—with Richie—who had suddenly reappeared and made him feel whole and safe and… alive.

But then again, Eddie thinks, maybe normal people feel this way all the time. Maybe everyone walks through the world every day feeling this, feeling this _much_ , and that’s what he’s always been missing all these years. 

His co-workers—on their ill-conceived happy hour Thursdays, when everyone but Eddie would get hammered—would talk about their wives, or their partners, or their seedy little side conquests, and get this low register and heavy lidded eyes and talk about how _good_ it was, how much they wanted to do it again. They would complain about how little they got it, or how unsatisfying things had become after years and years. Eddie always nodded, he always commiserated, but it was a lie. Eddie wasn’t necessarily satisfied, but he didn’t feel unsatisfied, either. Not until he walks into the Townhouse, surrounded by his best friends in the world—which feels absurd, considering he barely knows them, he barely knows _Richie_ —turns around, and catches sight of Richie. 

Slicked back hair from the nasty greywater, glasses cracked and crooked on his nose, his clothes drying crusted and disgusting, all the hair stuck to his arms and a little poking out from where his shirt had been ripped from Eddie prying himself up off the ground of the creature’s lair and— 

Eddie wants to climb him like a tree. He wants to slip his hands around Richie’s waist and pull; he wants to press their bodies together wherever they will fit and _grind_. His mouth waters and his hands twitch and he resolves to _do something about it_. He’s still stuck in that fog of adrenaline-courage that could drive him to do anything—like spear an evil clown through the heart, just because he sees Richie in danger—so he walks up to him, wrapping his fingers around Richie’s wrist. The feel of his bone, the solid give of his skin, the warmth of his whole body start every single neuron in Eddie’s body firing. Richie stares at him. Dazed and tired and wondering, and Eddie leans forward, like he’s going to _do something_. 

_Do anything_ , says a voice in his head, harsh and loud; his younger self screaming at him; Richie putting a hand to his arm and reminding him: he can be brave. 

_Do anything to let him know you want this. That you want_ him. 

So he keeps moving until he’s touching Richie, grabbing his wrist, sliding his hand up the sticky curve of Richie’s arm, and Richie—he must know. Eddie’s never been this bold with him, never touched him so intentionally or deliberately and all he can hear now is _You’re braver than you think_ and it’s like everything is suddenly clicking into place. 

And then, as soon as it came on, everything is eclipsed by a churning, painful nausea roiling angry through his stomach.

Eddie tries to push it away; he must have swallowed a good deal of dirty water while they were underground, and then cleaning off their wounds in the water, so of course that would make him sick. But it doesn’t dissipate. It gets worse. Richie ducks down, freeing his hand from Eddie’s grip, and palms gently against Eddie’s jaw and Eddie— 

Eddie sees a hobbling leper following him down the street. He sees a lashing, dripping tongue poking at him, swiping left to right before he can pull back in time, trying to wet his lips without his permission. Eddie sees himself screaming, crying, shaking in fear, and when he blinks and blinks and blinks, Richie is lost.

He fumbles up to his room, skidding across the mess of blood still there from Bowers’ attack, and expels the meager contents of his stomach into the toilet. He hasn’t eaten since the Jade, so there’s nothing but a sickly yellow fluid that he stares at for almost twenty minutes before Richie knocks on his door. 

“Y’okay in there, Eds?” Eddie hears through the wood, and he bends over the toilet bowl and cries. 

**

They spend two full days in the Townhouse just soaking in each other’s presence, so avoiding Richie isn’t really an option. And despite the nausea and the overwhelming intensity of his feelings, Eddie doesn’t really _want_ to avoid him, which is… confusing, to say the least. 

He has a couple more close calls, but nothing as close as that first time. Every time he approaches Richie to say something, or maybe even do something, he’s shocked back into panic and fear.

He sees a dark and damp basement; IV bags full of contaminated blood; a stretching, panting, gasping mess of a man he’s too afraid to see clearly, because all of his worst fears point to it being him. 

Soon enough, everyone makes their way back to their lives: first Bill, citing his angry wife and even angrier agent and producers; then Stan, with similar yet less threatening reasons; Ben and Beverly stay another two nights before making some agreement to go their separate ways and keep in touch; and Eddie and Richie help Mike pack up his studio above the library and send him off before it’s just the two of them. 

It frightens Eddie; he’s sure Richie is going to bring it up— after all, it was pretty obvious where Eddie was heading. But then Richie—tucked into a booth at the small pancake house down the road from the Townhouse—stares into his coffee and mumbles, “You could come to Chicago,” after Eddie is finished opining his return flight home, and Eddie feels nothing but excitement.

He accepts before Richie can even explain how it would work. 

It’s the most Eddie’s seen Richie smile since he arrived. Eddie, summoning all the patience and peace in his body, takes Richie’s hand over the table and tries to promise something with his eyes; Richie must see it, or believe it, because he books Eddie a flight and takes him home without another question. 

**

Moving is a fucking pain in the ass, so for the time being, things get put on hold. Eddie’s glad to have a little room to breathe—not to mention time to get to know Richie without any pressure. Turns out, he’s just as funny and exasperating as he was as a kid, but with an added shine of infuriating, charming attractiveness that Eddie might have recognized when he was younger, but now he can finally see it for what it is. 

Things are unspoken between them, which makes it mind-numbingly difficult for Eddie to work out what the fuck is happening to him. Every time he thinks about touching Richie, or kissing Richie, or, uh, _more_ , a new wave of fear and feeling washes over him until he has no choice but to hole up in his room—or the bathroom, if it’s closer—until it subsides. There’s no way to tell what will trigger it and what won’t; worst of all, Eddie doesn’t have the words to let Richie know he’s going through it, though he’s sure Richie has picked up on something. Eddie keeps giving him puppy eyes and making aborted attempts to hold his hand since that day at the diner, so. He hasn’t exactly been… normal. 

Two months in, after countless trips around the city and boxes of take-out and unpacking boxes and calls to and from lawyers, Richie asks Eddie if he wants to go to dinner. 

Eddie accepts with a scoff, because it’s dinner time, but then Richie says, “No, like— uh. Somewhere… nice? Maybe… Friday?” and Eddie stops being a clueless dumbass. 

“Nice?” Eddie parrots. Richie nods, then laughs. 

It’s cute. It’s so fucking cute that Eddie’s whole body heats, and he says, “Yeah, yes. Yes, I would like that,” because Richie is staring at him like he’s about to flip a switch that could ruin everything in a single, solitary second, and Eddie would do anything to keep from breaking Richie’s heart.

“Great,” Richie says, exhaling heavily. “It’s a date.” 

And for all intents and purposes, it is. They get dressed up, they eat amazing food, Eddie has a finger of whiskey and some fruity drink Richie recommends, and then they walk around the city to stare into window-fronts and roast graphic design choices on shop signs. It’s the best date Eddie’s had in years—maybe ever. Go figure, sometimes Richie has good ideas. No wonder Eddie spent his entire childhood following him around. 

They finally pack it in as midnight approaches. Disappointment cracks clean across Eddie’s chest as soon as they make it to the end of the dingy hallway in Richie’s building. Half of it is that the night is over, the other half is that Eddie knows how dates are supposed to end. 

When he turns back, the sight of Richie makes it both better and worse. Not that he hasn’t been looking at him all night. Not that he hasn’t been looking at him for _months_. But tonight it’s all he’s been able to do. In the cab, at the restaurant, in the dim, shadowy street lamps and sparkling decorations. Richie’s like the fucking sun: Eddie can’t keep his eyes off him, but he knows it’s doing irreparable damage. 

Richie’s tie hangs crooked from where he’s been fiddling with it, his hair is still neat and combed. His eyes are tired, bags visible under the lines of his glasses, but when he catches Eddie watching they light up, just like they have been all night. 

Eddie leans against the doorway and smiles, hoping maybe this will be easy. Hoping he can make a clean break and Richie won’t ask questions, that he won’t want to talk, that he’ll chalk it up to the late hour or the cold seeping through them both. Hoping he won’t ruin this thing with Richie, this thing that’s slowly becoming one of the best things he’s ever had in his life, despite not knowing what the fuck it actually is.

“Thanks for the wonderful night,” he says, softly, and it comes out much more earnest than he means it to. 

Richie’s shoulders flinch, tensing up then relaxing as he shuffles close enough that Eddie can smell his cologne. It’s way too much—something bordering on floral that makes Eddie’s nose tickle—but he teased Richie about it when he emerged from his room looking nervous and adorable. With a fucking _tie_ on, like he was going to a job interview. 

Richie’s eyes go soft and dazed, his lips pressing together before his tongue peeks out to wet them, and Eddie has to put a hand to the center of his chest before he moves in for the kill.

“I… can’t,” he says, choked and regretful, his heart pounding in his chest. Richie blinks and moves back.

“You…” Richie watches him then, must see the crease in Eddie’s brow or the nervous tapping of his foot or even the shadow that crosses over his eyes, who the fuck knows, but he mumbles out a slow and understanding, “Oh,” and Eddie wants to curl up in a ball and live in the hallway. 

“It’s not… you.” 

Fuck, this is hard to say. Richie seems to get some sort of message, because he’s backing up, words tumbling from his mouth.

“Eddie, I thought— I’m sorry, fuck, I thought when I asked you out you knew what I meant, I didn’t mean to—” 

“Fuck, Jesus, no. I know what you meant, I had— I know what you meant.” Eddie moves to close the gap between them again, balls up his fist against Richie’s chest. Solid, warm—he’d give anything to pull Richie inside and kiss him, mark him up, maybe get down on his knees, but then his brain jumbles and rattles in his head until he sees the very image that started all of this, just a few short months ago: 

A shaking, stumbling image of disease and death. Following him down the street. Grasping and reaching and gasping for him. Dirty fingers wrapped around his arm, leaning into to his lips, and Eddie tries to run but his feet are lead.

_Blow you for a dime._

_Why don’t you want to touch me, Eddie?_

_Eddie— what are you looking for?_

It’s been years. It’s been his whole _life_. He’s just never had to face it like this before.

Next thing he knows, Richie is shaking gently—then not-so-gently—at his shoulder. “Eddie. _Eddie_ , are you alright? It’s okay if you don’t want to—”

“No,” he sputters, his lips numb and the left side of his head pounding, and he fists his hands back in Richie’s shirt. “No, no, I’m… I’m fine.” 

Richie’s forehead pulls, wrinkled up in worry. Eddie wants to kiss there, too. He wants so much. Getting there is the problem, especially when he’s pouring sweat down the back of the dress shirt he changed into so Richie wouldn’t feel so alone. He blinks his eyes shut, then pops them back open so he can look Richie in the eye while he says this. 

“I want to, I’m just… I’m just… dealing.” 

Eddie’s pretty sure he’s never spoken this slowly in his life. It’s painful, but Richie gives him a second before responding.

“Let’s—it’s been a long night,” Richie sighs, his smile stretching, then faltering. “Let’s go to sleep, yeah?” 

Eddie nods, and follows Richie inside. 

**

The morning after their date, Eddie takes an early run, leaving Richie still snoozing in bed, his leg flung softly off the side, hairy and thick and beautiful, and Eddie almost pukes as soon as he gets dressed. 

The cold makes his shoulder ache, but he needs to talk. And move. And get a moment away from Richie; a moment where he’s not torturing himself over the massive implications of his feelings and the very instincts that are crying out to make him run. The autumn sun beats down on him but he ignores it. He’s in no mood for cheerfulness, not when he feels like he’s coming apart at the seams. 

“I think I know what’s happening, but I don’t want to… say it,” Eddie tells Bev through the static of his phone. The signal is perfect but she’s clearly working, the hum of other voices cutting straight through Eddie’s panicked non-confessions. 

“Eddie,” she replies softly, even through the noise. 

“I… _love_ him. I’m, like, ninety-two percent sure.” Eddie winces, feels his stomach turn, so he slows to a jog. “I mean… I love him like a friend, obviously, I know that for sure, it’s just—”

“More.” Bev hums. “It might be more for me, too.” 

Eddie skids to a stop. “With _Richie_?” 

“With Ben, you idiot,” she laughs, and it’s so warm he wants to cry. “He’s been visiting every couple weeks. He’s got a fucking _plane_ , did you know that?” 

“Jesus.” 

Bev sighs. Something squeaks on the line. “We’re taking our time. There’s no reason you can’t do the same.” 

Eddie thinks of late mornings, of farmer’s markets, of brisk walks around the city with Richie’s hand dangling next to his. 

“What if he…”

“He won’t,” she says, and even with the clenching of his heart, he knows he believes it. “Ben didn’t. Ben… he hasn’t. I guess we’re all sorta waiting it out, huh?” 

“Waiting what out?” Eddie asks, turning the corner back onto Richie’s block. Bev’s lips smack, and she lets out a laugh.

“Everything. Just to… see if it’ll hold.” 

“Yeah.” Eddie’s breath goes ragged in his lungs. “Yeah. God. _Yeah_.” 

And Richie… he holds. He stays. He’s patient, even when Eddie has clearly rejected him—or at least pushed him away with little explanation—twice. He sleeps next to Eddie in bed without touching; he makes breakfast for him while he’s out on his morning runs; he goes to movies and goes window shopping and teases him without so much as expecting anything, and it makes Eddie so delirious and so happy that Richie would allow this to be their life without wanting more. 

To be fair, it’s his place. His little two bedroom in the city, with a beautifully sun-soaked living room that has a day bed pushed into the corner for when guests visit, or Richie feels like taking a nap halfway through the day. Eddie will read, or watch the television on mute with subtitles, and sometimes he’ll brew coffee so Richie can wake to the smell, but really he just misses him. It’s absurd. It’s painfully easy. It’s the closest thing to happiness Eddie thinks he’s ever felt, and yet, he’s so torn up that some days he can hardly keep his meals down. 

In hindsight, it’s impossible that it wouldn’t eventually all come to a boiling point. Richie deserves an explanation. 

They’re on the couch watching something Eddie thought he remembered from his childhood but is now second-guessing, but Richie doesn’t seem to care. They got lazy and ordered Chinese take-out, which is significantly more appetizing without the ambiance of terror. Plus, Richie specifically requested they leave out the fortune cookies. 

“I didn’t try lo mein until I was in my twenties. I kinda regret that now,” Richie’s saying, peering down into his box, where he’s twirling a chopstick. “It’s like Chinese pasta with veggies and tons of sodium. What’s not to like?” 

“I want to fuck,” Eddie says outright, instead of what’s been running more reasonably through his head, like “I think I have some issues cropping up,” or “Could we talk about our relationship?” or the more expansive, “I’ve never been with a guy before, and I think there’s a _reason_ , but sometimes when I look at you I want to kiss your eyelids so badly I have to leave to throw up because I don’t know how to handle it.” 

Richie’s chopstick lands with a thunk. Eddie doesn’t look up, just focuses on his eggroll and the little bits of orange and green he sees in there. 

“You want to—”

“I just _can’t_ , I just…” 

“Eddie, whoa.” Richie sits up, uncrossing his legs so his socked feet meet the floor. He’s in a loose pair of what looks like sleep shorts, and the dingy t-shirt he wears when they get take-out because he’s prone to spills. Eddie’s now ninety-six percent sure he’s in love with him.

Eddie cuts him off again. 

“It’s hard to talk about.” He sets his egg roll down on his plate and gathers up all the strength and courage in his body so he can turn and look at Richie. 

“Talk about… fucking?” Richie’s face goes a pale shade of red. Eddie’s not sure if he’s embarrassed or nauseated. That makes two of them. 

“It’s—yeah. Kind of. And… kissing. Even the kissing.” 

_Especially the kissing_ , he thinks, but doesn’t say.

Richie squints. His thigh is jiggling ever-so-slightly. Eddie wants to touch him. 

_What do you want, Eddie_? 

“Eds,” Richie starts, and Eddie knows that tone. It’s the same one he used in the hallway, after their date. Slow, understanding, patient. Loving. “I’m not here to push you.” 

Eddie doesn’t fucking deserve him. He’s infuriating.

“Jesus,” Eddie huffs, and it feels like his whole ribcage is collapsing. “I know that. I know… I know that.” 

“If we _never_ — I mean.” Richie’s lips pull delicately into his mouth, then he exhales. This is hard for him, too, Eddie thinks. Maybe in a different way. Maybe not talking was easy for him, like it was for Eddie, in so many ways. “I’m okay with that. I’m okay with—”

“I don’t want… I don’t want that.” Eddie knows that for sure. He knows with a fervency he has never experienced; he knows he dreams of waking up wrapped in each other, of Richie boring him down into the sheets of _their_ bed, of holding hands and telling their friends and taking stupid kissing selfies or whatever the fuck people who are in love do. 

Because Eddie is pretty sure Richie loves him, too. Like, seventy-five percent sure. 

There’s just a wall there. A creeping, dripping, diseased wall that he can’t even begin to climb. Instead he’s down on the ground staring up at it. Just touching it makes him want to puke. Telling Richie feels like the first step. 

Richie’s eyes are wide, interested. “You don’t?” 

Eddie shakes his head. “I know it makes no sense.” 

“Alright,” Richie says, like it’s simple. “Alright, yeah.” 

Eddie raises his eyebrows. “Alright?” His thighs twitch. 

“Yeah.” Richie’s smile is light and happiness and warmth. He pulls his feet underneath him again, picks up his box of noodles, and resumes his swirling. 

“Okay,” Eddie sighs, and pops the rest of his eggroll into his mouth. 

**

Richie seems more than happy to take the next step toward communicating, and he does it only a few days later, when Eddie is making them dinner. 

They switch off most nights, and Eddie hates to admit it, but he has a lot to learn from Richie. Apparently living off of blocks of ramen, a dozen eggs and a disgustingly inherited set of spices from the person who lived in the apartment before him made him quite the innovative chef. Just last week he showed up with a bag of carrots, a lemon and canned crab he was able to make into crab cakes Eddie couldn’t tell apart from the over-priced kind he would occasionally consider ordering in New York. 

Eddie’s not quite as ambitious, so tonight he’s making pasta with meatballs. They’re _classic_. And hopefully the opportunity for immature jokes will keep Richie from criticizing any of Eddie’s inevitable culinary fuck-ups. Just as he’s draining the pot of water, Richie creeps up behind him, sniffing at the stove. 

“Looks good, Edward.” He reaches a hand out, which Eddie can’t slap away, since his hands are busy, so he cocks his hip out to the side. 

“Sit down, don’t help me,” Eddie barks. Richie raises his hands in defeat. 

“I wasn’t touching!”

Eddie sets the pot back on the stove and starts incorporating the sauce. “You were _going_ to touch.” 

Richie takes a seat at the table and stays quiet, which is more incriminating than him hovering over all the food. When Eddie takes a moment to look, Richie’s jaw is shifting under his scrutiny. 

“What?” Eddie asks, keeping an eye on his stirring. 

Richie shrugs. “Nothing.”

“It’s not—” Eddie takes a deep breath. He needs to finish dinner; he cannot get into a fight right now. “You’re clearly thinking something. Out with it.” 

Okay, so maybe Eddie is the one pushing communication. But Richie goading him into talking by being silent is… essentially the same thing. As far as they’re concerned. 

Richie’s face goes all twitchy and nervous. 

“This thing. With you, that you were— what you want, I mean. Is it, uh. Is it… touching?” Richie’s hands fidget in his lap. “That’s… the problem?” 

“Oh.” Eddie feels cored like an apple, his seeds spilled out all over the floor. “No, it’s not, uh.” He blinks, stirs the pasta until it starts to look like an actual meal. “I don’t know what it is.” 

“Okay,” Richie says again, and Eddie thinks he might drop it there. And he feels like a fucking asshole about it. 

Every time he tries to explain this—to Richie, to Bev, to Stan, on the few occasions he’s gotten him on the phone since Patty announced her pregnancy—it’s like he comes up empty and full at the same time. His stomach swirls with explanations that he can’t verbalize. Richie just watches him, patiently, and sometimes that makes it worse. 

His entire life, he’s never been given the space to figure things out. A problem was met with a multitude of solutions: he just had to pick one. Or, rather, Myra would pick one for him, and he would reluctantly agree, despite his inner misgivings or nervous stomach. She wasn’t as bad as his mother—not quite as controlling—but _space_ certainly wasn’t in her vocabulary. She was right there, waiting on him, watching him, monitoring him in case something was going wrong. It’s part of the reason he didn’t even want to attempt to go back to New York once he realized the divorce was for the best. He didn’t want Myra to fix anything, to solve it, to make it better. What was better was them apart. What was better was Eddie finally figuring himself out, without someone hovering over him all along the way. It wasn’t Myra’s fault he didn’t get that chance in the first place, but she deserves some of the blame for never seeing the husk of the man he had become under her watch. 

In the end, she gave up trying to get him to come back. The distance made it easier for him to get out of her grasp, and maybe she felt that, too. She had lost him already, if she had even had him to begin with. 

This problem doesn’t feel like it has a simple solution. If it did, Eddie’s nights upon nights of research probably would have brought up something conclusive and helpful. Instead he found page after page of information on trauma, and sexual healing, and the spiritual and emotional connection to the Vagus nerve, which Eddie suspects might be bullshit, but nothing he could pull out and go “A-HA! I just need to add two teaspoons of baking soda into my nightly glasses of water and this will all go away!” 

For his part, Richie looks like he’s thinking something over. But when he opens his mouth, all that comes out is: “Do you wanna make out?” 

Eddie drops the spoon into the pot, pulls it off the burner, and turns to face him. He’s quiet, so Richie starts to back-track. 

“That was quick, that was too fast.” He laughs self-consciously, pulling in on himself. “Calm down, Richie, we have to have a conversation first—” 

“Let’s do it,” Eddie says, his whole stomach is raging with nerves. 

“Yeah?” Richie asks, his eyes soft and hopeful. 

“Yeah.” 

“Okay, yeah.” Richie shuffles out of his chair quickly, moving toward Eddie, then steps back, like he thought better of it. “Okay, uh. You might want to… take the lead here.” 

Eddie’s whole body prickles with sweat, but he rolls his eyes and nods. 

Richie turns to the living room, then back to the stove, pointing. “Is the food gonna be—” 

“It’s pasta, Richie. It’ll fucking keep.” Eddie throws his apron onto the counter and fists a hand in the front of Richie’s shirt. The point of contact is thrilling enough, but then he feels the frantic beat of Richie’s heart and almost calls it all off. He pulls him to the couch and tries to relax. 

“Lemme sit down,” Richie says, then spreads his big thighs on the cushions, and Eddie has no problem climbing on top. “Oh…”

“This okay?” Eddie holds his gaze, eyes bouncing back and forth but eventually finding him. 

“Yeah,” Richie pants, so close Eddie can feel the breath on his chin. “Yeah, it’s… it’s good.” 

“It’s good?” Eddie feels delirious. Pushed out to sea, but with Richie clinging tightly to him, long fingers wrapped around his hips to hold him in place. Richie nods, and Eddie squirms on his lap, desperate to feel him. 

“It’s so—” Richie licks his lips, blinking his eyes closed and tipping his head back so Eddie is face to face with the long, bumpy column of his throat. A strong current laps at him, so he leans down and presses a kiss to the skin there. It’s scratchy, and warm, and thumps with Richie’s heartbeat. 

Eddie’s stomach remains still, calm. 

Richie’s head snaps back up, his pupils blown already, watching him with something like wonder, and Eddie thinks: maybe he _can_ do this. Maybe everything before was unfounded fear, fear that Richie has wiped clean. Fear that time and space and rational thought can really change, shift, make better. Eddie swirls his hips best he can, trying to ride this wave of optimism. 

Richie’s thighs are flush underneath Eddie’s, strong and thick and vibrating, and when Eddie scoots forward, he feels the hard bulge of Richie’s cock, and his own twitches hard in his pants. It surprises him. It’s like someone pulled a string, hard at the center of his bellybutton, and it’s overwhelming, but he wants more. His hands fly up to anchor himself on the back of the couch so he can keep grinding down, stunned by Richie’s willingness, on top of his own ability to finally stay in the fucking moment.

“Oh god,” Richie breathes. His head thunks against the center of Eddie’s chest, and Eddie can feel it reverberate down through his ribs. He tangles his fingers through the hair on the back of Richie’s head, holding him tighter, until Richie pops back up with a pained expression on his face. “Can I— Eddie can I…?” 

His eyes flick down to Eddie’s lips, and when Eddie nods, struck dumb by the way their bodies fit together so perfectly, he leans forward to wrap a big hand around the back of Eddie’s neck. There’s a moment of pause when Eddie feels like he could take on the whole world, the power of his body and his mind and his _dick_ all collecting inside him to add up to a whole fucking _functioning_ human, and then his vision starts spotting. 

Richie’s whole face morphs on a dime, twisted and grey and rotting, his breath hot and pungent and disgusting, his nose disappearing before Eddie’s eyes. Eddie recoils, his mind frozen in fear, until he starts to slip back off Richie’s lap. Hands wrap tight at the small of his back, pulling him upright, but he flails away, trying desperately to escape the grip. 

He can’t breathe. All he can smell and feel is death, rotting and decay and _fuck fuck fuck_ — It’s going to fucking _get_ him. It’s going to kill him, to swallow him whole, to tear him apart and chew at his insides until he— until he can’t— 

“Eddie, fuck, _Eddie_ ,” he hears cut through the static, and then he feels the spasm of his lungs as he stops fighting because it’s… because it’s Richie. 

It’s Richie. It’s just Richie. Richie trying to help him, trying to hold him up. 

Richie trying to _kiss_ him. And he fucked this up. All over again. 

“Eds… Eds, please say something to me,” Richie whispers, panicked but quiet, like he’s trying his best to keep his shit together. Eddie collapses into his chest, still huddled on his lap, tucking his face under Richie’s chin. 

“M’okay,” he squeaks out, and feels Richie’s chest expand and deflate with relief. 

“Okay, you’re okay,” Richie repeats, rubbing one strong line up and down his back, and Eddie feels himself calm, slowly but surely. “I’m sorry, you’re… you’re alright, Eddie. You’re gonna be fine.” 

Eddie’s breath stutters, pulled in shaky and deep as he gasps, trying to come back to himself, listening to Richie’s affirmations. 

**

Two or three years into their marriage—Eddie can’t be bothered to remember, but he knows it was quick—he and Myra started sleeping in separate rooms. There were a myriad of excuses they used, depending on who asked. Restless leg syndrome, snoring, turbulent night-time bladder issues, and on and on and on. One time, Myra’s long-distance cousin came to visit for the weekend, and upon discovering Eddie’s things setup in the guest room—something he was chided for later, since it was his job to make things look _presentable_ before anyone visited—wanted to know the deal. To Eddie’s continued horror, Myra busted out a whole new lie about his newly diagnosed sleep apnea. She was so convincing that as the weekend came to a close he found himself growing more and more anxious she had already scheduled a sleep study. Just to check. 

The dishonesty bothered Eddie, sometimes, but the situation did not. Eddie had grown accustomed to sleeping alone during childhood, when his mother would refuse to tuck him in at bedtime for fear that she would “overly-excite him before sleep.” In college Eddie was employed as a Resident Advisor, or else on his own, so even living with a roommate was an adjustment when he and Myra first moved in together. 

The only time Eddie remembers enjoying the company of others at night was sleepovers with the Losers. Not only were they an excuse to get out of his mother’s strangling watch, but they somehow made him feel safer. Warm and seen and protected, in a way that perhaps his mother always wished he would feel with her. 

Reasonably, Richie ushered him into the guest room down the hall as soon as he moved in. It was nice, with a full ensuite and a window with a view of the city, and Eddie was grateful, but he found himself slightly disappointed. It was almost gentlemanly of Richie, really, to not assume. That was the principled stance Eddie returned to whenever his stomach twisted around the decision. Eddie hadn’t promised him anything. 

Then, two weeks later, Eddie woke from a terrible nightmare that left him sobbing at the edge of his bed for the better part of a half an hour. As his body wracked with gasping breaths he tried to keep himself quiet, tried to avoid waking Richie, but as soon as he laid back down, a gentle knock came to the door. 

“Eds?” Richie all but whispered, and Eddie sat up right away. 

“Yeah, I’m here. I’m awake,” Eddie said, suddenly and painfully desperate for Richie to stay with him. 

Richie opened the door, and as it creaked gently, he motioned for Eddie to get up. 

“My bed’s big enough for two.” He shrugged, like it was the easiest thing in the world, and maybe it was. Because Eddie rolled out of the guest bed and never returned. 

Tonight, here, all these months later, after Eddie showers and brushes his teeth, he climbs onto the left side of the bed—his side, which he tries not to think too strongly about, lest it unravel him in such an unfamiliar way that he completely breaks apart—and faces Richie, whose propped up on his elbow, watching. 

“You feeling okay?” Richie asks, and it reminds Eddie of that first night. Tentative, but comfortable. 

“Much calmer.” Eddie hums, settling in. “Sorry.”

Richie raises his hand, defensively. “No need to apologize, bud.” 

“ _I_ want to apologize.” 

“It was my idea!” 

Eddie frowns. “I could have said no.” 

“Hey, it’s not your fault I’m irresistible.” Richie wiggles his eyebrows, but Eddie knows he’s feeling vulnerable. Maybe even rejected. The soft look in his eyes said it all; when Eddie finally stopped crying, when Eddie pulled back and got out of his lap, when Richie served him a bowl of over-cooked pasta with way too much meat sauce and they ate in relative silence while a movie played on the television: Richie was taking it personally. Eddie doesn’t blame him; he probably would, too. 

The panic has mostly vacated Eddie’s heart, but it attempts a reappearance when he opens his mouth to explain. He takes Richie’s hand to make up for it. That point of contact is easy, somehow. If only it extended further. 

“It’s not you,” Eddie says again, slowly, and the clench of his throat around the words threatens to frustrate him. “Like I said.”

“Right.” 

There is more Eddie wants to say, but he can’t quite get there. He lays a hand over his chest, pressing delicately, because he read in a book one time that grounding himself is important. Fuck. He should probably take Bev up on her offer to book him an appointment with a therapist, if only for more coping techniques. He can’t keep freaking out on Richie like this. Especially not when he left his inhaler in New York. 

His eyes slip closed as he tries to catch his breath, desperate to get the words out, to explain to Richie what’s going on, if he can. Richie doesn’t say anything, but after a moment, Eddie feels a hand press over his own. 

He opens his eyes to see Richie staring at him, crease in his brow, bottom lip slightly pouted out. Eddie wants to kiss him so badly his whole stomach rolls over itself. He doesn’t want to disappoint Richie; he deserves a boyfriend, a partner, someone who loves him and holds him and cares about him. And Eddie _does_ , he— 

Eddie loves him. 

“I don’t know what the fuck it is,” he says in a rush, clinging tighter to Richie’s fingers with his own. “I thought after… after Derry that everything would sort of… fuck off. I guess.” 

Richie barks a laugh. “No such luck.” 

“Right, and I think it’s even made some things… worse.” 

“The memories.” Richie bites at his lip, recognition flashing over his face. “Nightmares.” 

“Yeah,” Eddie agrees, though that’s not quite the half of it. 

“Look,” Richie says, shifting closer just a centimeter. “You don’t have to tell me what’s going on. That’s- that’s your business. I just don’t wanna fuck with it. I don’t want to fuck _you_ up.” 

Richie’s eyes start to shine with tears, and he laughs again, a little wet, tipping his head back and sniffing. 

Eddie wants so badly to hold him. He can’t imagine how good that would feel right now, having this conversation with his head tucked under Richie’s chin, his big arms wrapped around Eddie’s whole middle, their feet tangled together. Instead he can still feel every place Richie’s hand is pressing into him, and wonders if Richie can feel his heart thundering in his chest. He wishes he could feel Richie’s heart, too. 

In theory, it should be easy to tell him. The leper, what It said, the visions and nightmares and hallucinations and words that loop in Eddie’s head that make it hard to tell reality from memory. Richie might even understand. But when Eddie opens his mouth, the hopeful look in Richie’s eyes is just too much to bear. 

“It’s the germs, I think.” His whole stomach feels hollowed out, but Richie nods, so he keeps going. “The messiness and the bacteria and… and all that shit my mom implanted in my head.” 

Richie hums, his hand twitching against Eddie’s chest like he wants more. And that’s it, isn’t it? Richie would be constantly touching, holding, kissing—or more—if he could. Eddie’s the thing that’s standing in his way. And who the fuck _knows_ if this is something he can drill out of his head with therapy and conditioning and self-love work and all that bullshit Bev and Mike tell him about on their weekly calls. This might just be who Eddie is. 

He doesn’t want to crush Richie’s dreams for a successful, healthy relationship. He has to give him hope this is something he can conquer. 

“I…” Eddie blinks. Breathes. Lifts up his hand, Richie’s still on top, and gestures between their chests. “I want to give this a shot.” 

A slow, careful smile stretches over Richie’s face. 

“Me too, Eds.”

He pulls at their hands until they land on his chest. 

Eddie wants to make him a guarantee, but he knows it would be unfair. So he rubs softly at the fabric of Richie’s sleep shirt and accepts what they have now, whatever it turns into in the future. 

Hopefully, Richie will keep staying. 

**

Contrary to what he self-consciously tells himself while lying awake in bed at night, not every moment of Eddie’s life in Chicago is spent worrying about his relationship with Richie. Just… a _fair_ amount of it. 

The whole concept of deciphering where he stands with his prospective partner is foreign to him. Eddie didn’t have relationship drama when he was younger; he hardly dated, in fact, until he met Myra when she started nursing his mother during her cancer, and then things just seemed to slot into place. Their marriage was by no means drama-free, but Eddie never had to wonder whether she wanted him around. There was no doubt about that. 

And it’s not like Eddie _really_ , logically doubts that Richie wants him around. Richie seems to like living with him. The invitation was sincere, it’s a mutually beneficial arrangement—with Eddie helping with cooking and cleaning and being home to sign for packages of expensive whiskey from weird subscription boxes Richie refuses to cancel—and he continually chooses to spend time hanging out with Eddie when he could be writing, or furthering his career, or seeing other friends, though Eddie’s never heard about people other than the Losers and Richie’s agent and manager. Eddie means to tell Richie he should probably take some time away, have some space between the two of them. But it’s only been a few months, so Eddie lets it go. They’re all adjusting to their new normal. 

Besides, it makes some small, immature part of Eddie shine. It piques something old and possessive in him from childhood: watching Richie flail and perform for attention was equal parts delightful and frustrating, becoming flustered when it was all centered on Eddie, but wanting nothing more than being the only one Richie was watching for a response. 

So Eddie resolves to allow them each their time to do whatever they want. The job question is lingering as the months slide on—and as Eddie’s bank account dwindles down—but he’s got enough saved up to make it last. There’s no way Richie is going to let him financially drown, either. Richie’s not necessarily strapped for cash, and now that Eddie is cooking, they’re spending far less money in general. He’ll set up interviews eventually. 

He’ll just… let this feeling linger a little bit longer. Staying at home, cooking dinner for Richie, taking walks through the city, riding the Metro into the suburbs to visit the zoo and see Richie’s many, _many_ animal impressions. 

It’s the first time Eddie’s had a moment to breathe, away from endless employment, since he got to college. If someone had asked him why he never took a break, he probably would have cited his perfectionism that tended toward being a workaholic. The truth is he didn’t want to know what his brain would do without being busy 24/7. The freedom from panicking about his own, well, _panic_ , is a relief. Even working through this shit with Richie feels leaps and bounds easier than any single day in his marriage to Myra, in his job in New York. And brings a certain sense of liberation within itself. 

Today, the form his freedom is taking is working through the backlog of Bill’s books. Mike keeps telling him they’re “actually really good” and that it’s “easy to see us in it, deep down,” and Eddie’s curiosity has started to get the better of him. Ten pages in, Richie bursts through the door. 

“I have an idea,” Richie says, home from some sojourn out to get a new water bottle, since Eddie told him it would help with his dry skin and general lack of energy. 

Eddie looks up from his book. “Oh?” 

“Yeah, hear me out.” Richie sits in the chair across from him, rubbing nervously over his knees. “The kissing freaks you out, right? The tongue and the diseases and like, the fact that my mouth is probably—” 

“Richie,” Eddie stops him, a chill eking its way up his spine. Richie holds up both hands defensively.

“Right, right, okay.” He points fingers at Eddie. “What if we… just watched each other?” 

Eddie blinks. “Watch each other… kissing?” 

“No, no no. How would that even—Anyway.” Richie shakes his head like a dog. His hair looks softer, a little less stringy, and Eddie off-handedly wonders if he’s been using the conditioner Eddie bought for him. 

“So what? Watch each other—” 

“Watch each other…” Richie makes a sideways fist in front of his crotch, jerking it a few times and then spreading his fingers with a quiet _psssht_ noise. “You know.” 

Eddie blinks again, but heat unfurls slowly in his stomach. “You’re fucking disgusting.”

“That’s what they tell me,” Richie says, pumping his eyebrows. “Or what you tell me, I guess, but _anyway_ …” He claps his hands together, then does jazz hands. “What do you think?” 

Eddie pauses while he considers. Their last few tries haven’t been so successful; Eddie’s not sure going again is such a good idea. But then the hard press of Richie’s dick from a few days zooms to the forefront of his mind. It felt so big, so solid and _hot_ against him, grinding up like Richie wanted it so badly he could hardly contain himself. 

His mouth waters.

“Um.” 

Richie’s already there, giving him an out. “It’s totally up to you. If you just want to watch me, if you want me to watch you, I’m up for anything. Or nothing.” 

Eddie bites at the inside of his cheek. It does sound _appealing_. More than, actually. 

“Where would we…” 

His eyes wander to the couch. He thinks of easy, sleepy nights with Richie, each of them slumped into the cushions, their legs stretched out from opposite ends. A movie playing on the television, painting Richie in blue light. The soles of their feet pressing together. He raises an eyebrow and watches Richie make the same connection. 

“Yeah,” Richie says, suddenly breathless. “Yeah, that would be good.” And then he starts taking off his pants. 

Eddie snorts while he joins him, and then they’re racing to see who can flop onto the couch the fastest, still in their briefs and shirts, and Eddie’s practically _giddy_ by the time Richie’s socked feet are rubbing up against his. He lets Richie’s legs drag along his, their hair pulling and fluffing against his own bare skin, and he swallows down a shiver. 

Eddie’s always liked Richie’s body hair—or what he’s seen of it—and his legs are the most enticing. Richie sleeps in briefs, so his legs are always on full display, long and stretched over the bed as he scrolls through Twitter before they sleep. Eddie’s often thought of running his hands up the length of them, feeling the way the grain of the hair would push back against his fingertips, how Richie would react to the touch. 

Eddie worries—staring hungrily at where his shirt is riding up as he scoots further down in his seat—that seeing more of Richie’s body might be the end of him. 

Richie clicks his tongue, watching Eddie with dark eyes and a smirk. “You want me to go first?” 

Eddie nods. Richie pauses, raises his eyebrows in a _You sure_? motion, so Eddie nods again, more resolutely, and shifts his hips against the give of the cushion. Richie’s eyes track him, his hands twitching, and then he hooks his thumbs into the waistband of his briefs and starts pulling them down. 

A whole lifetime’s worth of anticipation flows over Eddie in a split second. This stupidly feels like the culmination of something, and that thought alone makes Eddie even more nervous, so he shakes it off and focuses on Richie. And Richie’s…fucking _gorgeous_ dick. 

It’s big, filling Richie’s hand nicely, the same dusty pink color as his thighs, but darker around the head, as far as Eddie can see. It’s more than Eddie imagined. He wants to see more of it, see it leak, tongue around the head and see if he can get Richie’s eyes to flutter. 

“Fuck,” he huffs quietly, reaching down to palm at where he can already feeling himself getting hard. 

The last few months he’s spent alone time getting acquainted with what he’s been calling “imaginary dicks,” thanks to the ever-generous realm of gay porn. He wanted to build up some sort of stupid immunity, images and videos of them in action, close-ups Eddie could study to make certain he was interested. He had started with straight porn, but found himself focusing solely on the hairy-chested men, the pistoning of their hips, their balls hanging between their legs, and then finally gave up the ghost. Spending forty years of your life on earth insisting to yourself that you’re not attracted to a certain _thing_ can definitely take its toll. But the findings of all his research led to the same conclusion Eddie is now being slapped across the face with: he’s _more than_ interested in men. One man, in particular. He’s never felt like this while watching porn. And he’s never seen a cock he’s wanted to touch as much as Richie’s. 

It’s clear Richie is too, if the ravenous way his eyes take Eddie in is any indication. There’s a soft expression on his face as he watches Eddie rub his hand over himself, then his forehead flicks.

“Y’okay?” he asks, and Eddie is quick to grunt his assent. He feels like he’s floating, high and happy on arousal and comfort. Like nothing could possibly cut through the giddiness bubbling in his stomach. Richie smiles, and Eddie doesn’t feel a single bubble burst. 

“You’re…” _Hot_ , Eddie tries to say, but feels his throat scratch around the words. Richie pouts his lips into a shush, but doesn’t make the noise. 

“Just watch, remember?” 

“Oh, so I can’t talk?” 

Richie laughs, his head tipping back off the end of the couch. In the low light of the winter sun, the notches of his throat are prominent, shadowed, and Eddie thinks of licking over them, one by one. 

“You’re right, that’s impossible,” Richie teases, and Eddie feels a warm flush. 

“Fuck off.” 

“Keep going, I’m getting there,” Richie hisses like a joke, but his hand cups sure and strong around his cock, trailing down to the base, where it’s nestled in a surprisingly well-trimmed gathering of pubic hair. Eddie’s pulse jumps. 

“Looks like it.” 

Richie’s eyes go dark as he strokes; tentatively, at first. Eddie licks his lips, makes sure Richie sees him, and Richie’s dick flinches in his hand. Eddie throws his head back with a groan. _Fuck_ , he wants it to be his hand. He wants to latch his mouth against Richie’s throat and trail down to fondle his balls, just like Eddie likes when he’s touching himself. 

Just as Richie’s plumping up nicely, flicking his wrist over the head, Eddie sees the moment he realizes they’re unprepared. Eddie doesn’t want him to move or stop, or do anything but exactly what he’s doing, so he pulls himself off the couch. 

“I’ll get it,” he says, and Richie hums a little satisfied noise before Eddie leaves the room. He tosses Richie the lube from his bedside drawer—the stuff Eddie glimpsed last week and almost had an aneurysm—and plants back where he was. Then he thinks better of it, a ball of courage rising in his chest, and gets back up. 

“Wha…?” Richie starts to say, but when Eddie’s briefs hit the floor, his mouth snaps back shut. Eddie thinks of leaning down to kiss him. It would be easy. It would be simple, a peck on the lips, and then Richie might make it deeper, and then Eddie could drape himself on top of Richie’s body, and this could all be simple. Easy. 

But he doesn’t want to push his luck. He sits on the couch, throwing his legs over Richie’s, and wraps a hand around his erection. 

It drips onto his fingers. Richie hisses. And Eddie’s whole body flushes, hot like the sting of a rash. His armpits prickle. He shifts and watches. Watches Richie watch him, watches Richie’s hand working slowly over the skin of his shaft, watches him squirm and moan, just so Eddie can see him. They kick at each other, fuck into their fists, then keep kicking. They laugh and poke at each other’s ankles. When Richie squirts more lube onto his hand, Eddie motions for more himself, and Richie wet, dirty fingers brush his as he hands it off. Eddie can barely breathe, but there’s nothing like panic rattling in his chest this time. 

It feels different than all the nights Eddie’s spent alone, doing this. Eddie feels ecstatic and desirable, held and cared for, cared _about_ , in a stark split from how this would go when he was back in New York. When Myra was out of town, or working late, or at her book club, sometimes Eddie took the opportunity that was presented to him. It wasn’t often, but it certainly wasn’t like this. His eyes were always clenched shut. His breath came hard and fast and frustrated through his lungs. Sometimes he couldn’t even finish. And when he did, it was capped off with a cloaking, shivering sense of guilt. Of shame. 

Sometimes he longed for someone to hold him through it; but when he closed his eyes, when calmed his thoughts with attempted fantasy, it was never Myra he was imagining. It was never Myra’s body pressed close to his, smoothing a hand down his back, telling him it was okay to feel good. 

Now he wonders. 

Since moving in with Richie, he hasn’t had the balls to explore himself quite like this. There was the porn, sure, but he never brought that reaction to its natural conclusion. It was too closely entwined with Richie, and stupidly, he didn’t want to give some random man stroking his dick on his laptop screen something he had yet to give Richie. It’s not that he thought Richie would necessarily mind, he just didn’t want to waste an opportunity; he didn’t want to risk getting off to something Richie could give him. He wanted to wait, just like Richie had for him. 

Tonight, a livewire crackles through his body, through all his limbs as Richie touches him gently, swiping his leg back and forth almost unconsciously, but still so carefully. Eddie loves it. Eddie loves Richie’s eyes and Richie’s forearms and the way Richie snarls out little bursts of laughter when Eddie pretends it’s a competition and grimaces in concentration. There’s nothing Richie does that Eddie _doesn’t_ love, come to think of it.

It emboldens him.

“This was, _hah_ , this was a good idea,” Eddie says, and Richie’s eyes light up. 

“Wow,” he coughs, his hand erratic and enthusiastic as his cock grows harder. It’s a punishing red at the tip. Eddie wonders what it tastes like. “Didn’t expect _that_.” 

“You didn’t expect this to be good? It was your idea!” 

“I didn’t expect a compliment quite so quickly,” Richie clarifies. Eddie scoffs.

“I compliment you,” he says, then scours his brain for the proof. Richie blows a skeptical puff of air, and Eddie frowns. His dick keeps leaking into his hand. “Fuck, I never…” 

“S’okay, dude.” Richie smiles from half his mouth. The line of his crooked tooth pokes through. “I know how we function. Time skip or not, this is how we’ve always been.” 

That sets a different kind of fire in the pit of Eddie’s stomach. It’s infuriatingly on the mark, in a way that makes Eddie so uncomfortable he’s worried he’s begun to panic again. He _compliments_ Richie. He blinks and blinks and tries to remember the last time he complimented Richie. 

When he comes up blank, it feels like there’s only way to remedy it. 

“I love your stupid, crooked teeth,” he says, and Richie’s face falls slack. His hand stills on his cock, and Eddie takes the chance to really get another eyeful. “How’s that?” 

“G-good, uh—” 

“And your legs,” Eddie chances, feeling bold. “Your legs are really…” 

Richie cocks a brow. His hand strokes again. “...really?” 

“Mmm, _fuck_ , they’re—they’re hot. All your hair, and the way it gets lighter the further up your thighs you go.” The more he says, the easier it is to get out. His hand skitters faster over his cock, and then Richie’s matching him. “And then your… the hair around your…” 

“My…?” Richie keeps leading him, and it’s such a familiar challenge, he has to meet it. It’s their way of give and take, and it’s actually fucking working. Eddie wants to give him everything. 

“Your cock,” he hisses, and Richie lets out a deep, full-throated moan. He shifts until he’s pulling his leg up, free hand around his knee, jerking his hips into the air in the motion of a real fuck as his cock pushes through the circle of his first, and Eddie is desperate to see him come, but then his eyes fall down to where Richie’s ass is pressed into the cushions. Because even through the dim light and Richie’s thrashing, he can see under Richie’s balls, all the way down to his hole. Down to where Richie’s own finger is pressing, right against his rim, rubbing in quick circles like he really _needs_ it. 

“Eddie, _Eds_ , fuck” Richie’s panting as he starts shooting all over his stomach, messy and uncontained and beautiful. Eddie is transfixed. Richie’s hole clenches around the tip of his finger as he comes and comes, as his dick jerks and fucks into his hand, and Eddie wants to slam himself across the couch to press his tongue right _there_. He wants to feel the fluttering, he wants to feel Richie trembling and letting go and giving in, he wants Richie to _come on him_ , he wants Richie to lick it off, he wants to- to _taste_ him, and that thought is so dirty and dangerous, so off-putting to all the logical centers of his brain, but his whole body lights up in arousal, and then he’s pitching head-first off the cliff of his own orgasm. 

“Oh _fuck_ ,” he huffs, and Richie blearily blinks up at him to watch. 

It hits him like a bolt of lightning to the center of his chest, radiating down to his abdomen, his balls, skittering painfully through his legs, and he has to make an effort not to let it overtake him. The loss of control is enough. Richie’s eyes on him are enough. He fucking _did_ it, even if they barely touched. But the success of jerking off in front of Richie, of letting Richie see him, of _seeing_ Richie—more than he ever planned, more than he thought he wanted, _fuck_ , was he wrong—is sending him to the moon. 

“Wow,” Richie repeats. They stare at each other for a beat, breath heaving happily in their chests, just smiling at each other like idiots. 

“Yeah,” Eddie says, and wants to laugh, so he does. 

Richie stares at him for a moment with a lazy smile, his hand still covered in his own jizz, and Eddie loves him so much it’s practically bursting from him. 

Maybe it is easy, he thinks. 

Maybe this is all it needs to be. Slow, careful, easy. And then they can make it. And then they can finally make it work. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know if you enjoyed and please validate me so I keep writing this while _also_ still working through my huge nano project. Big ol' thank you to Alec for reading this and telling me it was not trash, you are a lovely human through and through.
> 
> I have now written 40ish Reddie/IT fics if you wanna peruse my library and read anything else. Otherwise you can find me on Tumblr at [tinyangryeddie](https://tinyangryeddie.tumblr.com/) or Twitter, where I'm [camerasparring](https://twitter.com/camerasparring)!


	2. someone I can lean on, until I don't need to

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two days after the Couch Incident, as Eddie refers to it in his mind, they fly to Montana to visit Ben and Beverly. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for all the kind comments on the first chapter. I am almost done with chapter three, and it's getting dangerously close to tempting me into writing five chapters. I'm hoping to keep a Friday posting schedule.

Two days after the Couch Incident, as Eddie refers to it in his mind, they fly to Montana to visit Ben and Beverly. 

It’s a trip they’ve been planning for almost a month now, and Eddie’s been keeping employment at bay by using the imminent visit as an excuse. The thought of going back and actively seeking out a job leaves his stomach churning a bit, but he tries to ignore it. Reality is now a long weekend away. There are a few other things that are occupying his mind in the mean-time. 

Like the fact that his finalized divorce papers arrived the morning after the Couch Incident. 

They had gone to bed normally that night. Cleaned up and laughed a little and watched an episode of _Bojack_ on Netflix because Richie’s been obsessed. They had brushed their teeth together as usual, climbed into bed as usual, and Richie had pressed a small kiss to Eddie’s hand after he thought he had fallen asleep, which was definitely _not_ usual. Eddie had flushed, and said a small and silent prayer to the heavens that he was able to school his face well enough to keep up the unconscious charade. Then, the next morning, Richie answered the door, and called Eddie back to the living room—the scene of the crime—to flap the huge mess of papers in his face. 

“You’re a free man,” Richie had said, which struck Eddie as odd. They had stared at each other for a brief moment until Richie shuffled over to the coffee maker and said nothing further the rest of the day. 

Eddie is trying not to be disappointed about it, but he’s a little disappointed about it. It’s not necessarily Richie’s job to get the ball rolling on a conversation—even though it _was_ his idea, and he’s the one who made the weird “free man” remark, and… but that’s beside the point. Eddie’s not talking, either. Waking up to Richie’s smiling face, slack with ease and relaxation and a good night’s sleep—without nightmares, which have dissipated for both of them since they started this bed-sharing ritual—is more important to Eddie right now than messing this up. 

Besides, Richie’s never been able to keep his mouth shut for long. Neither has Eddie. So maybe he should just let it happen naturally, and focus on something else during this trip. Like what the fuck they’re really doing here, after all. 

Ben had called and invited them a month ago, though he was vague on the reasoning, and, weirdly, the departure date. Eddie booked a flight for a Thursday evening, which Beverly confirmed was fine, but Richie has been squirrelly about the intended plans as well. Eddie had tried to keep his curiosity at bay, but after the train ride to the airport and several hours on a plane with only Bill’s book to keep him company, he’s gone a little crazy with the options. 

“It’s almost Thanksgiving, but why the fuck would they keep that a secret?” Eddie whispers. Richie squirms impatiently in his airplane seat. “It’s not a secret wedding, is it?”

“How many guesses are you going to make before it gets through your tiny little noggin that _I know as much information as you do_?” Richie eyes the long line of passengers stuck in the tiny hallways, waiting to get to the exit. Eddie’s smarter than that. He’s been taking little laps around the plane every twenty minutes. His legs are giving him no pain. 

“I’m just _speculating_ ,” Eddie says, shrugging. 

“Yeah, well, you’re stressing me out.”

“I’m stressing you _out_?” Eddie’s incredulous. “What is up with you? You’ve been twitchy since we boarded.” 

Richie snaps to look at him. “I’m not _twitchy_. You’re the one who’s been scaling the aisles every five seconds.”

“I’ve told you a million times that getting up every _twenty minutes_ is good for your circulation when you’re stuck on a plane, don’t fucking pretend like you didn’t hear me. You’re shaking me off and being weird, I know something is wrong,” he says, and then internally panics as fast as the words are out. He wants to have a conversation, he said he would _let it happen_ , but he wasn’t exactly prepared to do it on the plane. As soon as they’ve landed. Among a bunch of strangers. 

Why does Richie have to constantly push his buttons like this?

“It’s…” Richie trails off, waving a hand and then nervously clutching at his thigh. “Nothing, forget it, you’re right.” 

But Eddie can’t _forget it_. “I’m right? Right about what?” 

Okay, so maybe he’s to blame, too. He really is his worst fucking enemy.

Richie slams his head back against his seat. 

“Oh my fucking _god_ ,” he hushes, a harsh whisper, and then says, “It’s a party for _you_ , okay? We’re celebrating your divorce, and I promised everyone I would keep it under wraps and now you’re _digging_ it out of me like an _asshole_ —” 

“Oh my god.”

“--so please do not let me take the fall for this fucking shit.” Richie shuts his eyes, sighing heavily. “Stan is going to kill me.”

“ _Stan’s coming_??” Eddie yelps, and half the plane turns to look at him. He slides back down in his seat, not having realized he was even standing to begin with. So yeah, he was getting a little bit animated. “Okay. So.”

“Yeah. _So_.” 

“All of our friends are traveling to Montana to celebrate the dissolution of my marriage,” Eddie says, in the quietest, most aggressive voice he can manage. “And you didn’t fucking warn me.” 

“It’s a surprise _for you_.” Richie flails, pointing inexplicably at him. “Of course I was going to fucking keep it from you.” 

“I hate surprises! Even if they’re good! But _especially_ when they’re to-to fucking… celebrate something that’s—” Eddie’s body deflates back into his seat, his mouth shaking around the words. He’s not even sure why he’s angry, but it’s coming naturally to him right now. And even though his voice is back to high-pitched and loud, their fellow passengers are now trailing out of the plane, much less concerned with the two men having an animated conversation in the back. 

Richie spreads his hands out around his thighs. “Are you saying we should turn this ship around?”

“ _No_ , fuck. No…” Eddie sighs. He doesn’t want to be _that_ fucking asshole. This is just… not at all what he expected. “I want to see everyone, of course I want to see everyone. I just didn’t know this whole thing would be revolving around my fucking failures in life.” 

Richie grunts, but says nothing, which is honestly very annoying. Eddie pinches hard at the bridge of his nose. He leans hard in his seat, toward where Richie is jiggling his leg and biting at his already shredded lip, and opens his mouth before he can stop himself. 

“We fucking live together, I can’t believe you managed to keep this from me.” 

Richie looks at him again, but this time something flashes over his eyes that Eddie doesn’t recognize. It’s unsure, and a little bit angry. He pauses, pressing his lips together. Eddie’s brain is screaming at him, waiting for the other shoe to drop, for Richie to bring up the fact that they jerked off in front of each other but still have yet to kiss because that would just be the cherry on the fucking shit cake right about now, but then Richie’s face slides into a smirk. 

“I don’t tell you everything, Eds,” Richie says, and it sinks like a rock in Eddie’s stomach. Richie looks unaffected, and somehow that’s even worse, because Eddie knows he’s not. Before Eddie can open his mouth, Richie points out at the now-empty hallway of the plane. Eddie scrambles to grab his bag from the overhead bin and stalks off the plane, Richie’s words rattling around in his head. 

**

Upon first glance, from the driveway in their rental car, Ben’s house is… ridiculous. 

It’s absurdly sprawled out, one story—at least from what Eddie can tell—and made up almost completely of glass windows, floor to ceiling. The rest of it is heavy wooden beams, holding the whole structure in place, framing it in a dark contrast to the light of the glass. Eddie’s never seen anything like it. There are no neighbors on either side, and the last time he remembers seeing one was a few miles down the road. 

So. Ben wasn’t lying about being a hermit. Now he’s hosting a party for all his friends, letting Eddie and Richie stay in his guest house and cooking all weekend long. How a few months can change things. 

How a few months can change fucking _everything_. 

Eddie’s not sure he’s supposed to knock directly on the glass, though he’s probably overthinking it; Ben wouldn’t build a house made of _glass_ if you weren’t allowed to knock on the door, but upon further inspection he doesn’t see a door-bell, and Richie is coming up quick behind him with the bags, so he gentles a rhythm on the frame while he screws on a fake smile. He promised Richie upwards of a million times that he wouldn’t spill the beans, and even though everything inside of him is raging to pull Richie into a room alone to talk some shit out, he’s determined to make this work. 

Eddie’s used to pasting on a different personality to get through events. He did it all the time with Myra, with his mother, with his stupid college friends who took him to frat parties and expected him to hook up with random girls instead of sit in the corner swaying unhappily to the music. He can get through _this_ party—one with his _actual friends_ , who make him _actually happy_ —like a normal person. He can enjoy the company of his friends in Ben’s weird see-through house and wave off all the congratulations for leaving his wife in the dust and starting a semi-confirmed relationship with his live-in best friend who is currently refusing to even hold his hand in the car when offered. 

_Yes_ , Eddie tells himself, as Bev appears, her face faintly blushed, her smile genuine and excited. _I can fucking pull this off._

Then, as soon as Bev swings open the door, her face falls flat. Eddie freezes as she peers behind his shoulder to glare at Richie. She pauses, then rolls her eyes. 

“You told him.” 

“ _What_ ,” Eddie spits, but Bev ignores him. 

Richie groans dramatically, flying past both of them and into the house. “He _tore_ it out of me.” 

“I did not _tear_ —” 

“He’s been asking questions since O’Hare,” Richie steams, dropping the bags at his feet. Ben appears from around a corner with bright eyes and a giant smile.

“Oh, hey, guys! Welcome!”

When Richie rockets right past him with another indeterminable grunt, Ben looks to where Bev and Eddie are still crowded in the doorway. He gives a small shrug before moving in for a hug, and Eddie accepts it gladly, his stomach swirling as he watches Richie disappear into the house. 

“He have a rough flight or something?” Ben asks as they pull apart. Eddie watches him sidle along Bev, looping an arm around her waist. Her face goes soft and grateful, and Eddie feels a sense of calm for the first time since they landed.

“Yeah,” Eddie says, walking over to scoop Richie’s bag off the floor. “Something like that.” 

After Eddie’s taken their bags to their room, listened to Ben explain the layout of the house, and Bev explain the secret itinerary of the weekend, which includes the rest of the visitors arriving sometime later this afternoon or tomorrow morning, Eddie finally has time to scour the house for Richie’s whereabouts. He feels like a parent looking for their sulking child, and when he sees the light under the—third? Fourth? Jesus, this place is fucking huge—bathroom door, the parallel seems all the more appropriate. 

When he knocks on the door, he hears a brief scrambling before Richie clears his throat.

“Occupado,” he says, his voice rough, and Eddie’s heart skips a beat. Fuck, was he _crying_? He crowds in closer to the door.

“Rich, it’s me.” 

“Yeah, I can tell from your knock, dude.”

“My knock is not—” Eddie stops himself, sniffing. “Just shut the fuck up and let me in.” 

At first he thinks Richie is going to keep arguing—they’ve gone back and forth about Eddie’s “forcibly manly” knock, which Eddie has taken as homophobic, to which Richie usually replies you can’t be homophobic if you’re gay, and then they go around in unecessary circles until Eddie leaves the room in a huff—but then he hears a heavy sigh on the other side of the door and a click as the lock slides free. He takes a deep breath and opens it.

Richie’s eyes are red-rimmed under his glasses, his hair mussed from where his fingers have clearly been raking through it. While Eddie takes him in, he scrapes his nails over the back of his head, a nervous itching Eddie recognizes now after months of getting to know him again, and something about that makes him feel warm all over. 

When they got to Derry this summer, the sight of Richie was so familiar and yet so foreign to him. He recognized his bright, joking eyes and the swoop of his jaw that came late and frustratingly quickly the summer after their sophomore year of high school, but his voice was deeper, rougher. Now Eddie’s not sure which Richie he knows better. Which Richie is _his_. 

_Both_ , he thinks. _They can both be mine_. 

Eddie shuts the door behind him and squares both hands on his hips. 

“You gonna tell me what’s going on now?” 

Richie scuffs his feet against the floor, not meeting Eddie’s eyes.

“I’m using the bathroom, Eds. I hope I don’t have to explain that to you.”

Eddie presses his lips together and waits. Richie groans.

“Can you lay off a little? Please?” He sounds tired. Sad. Defeated. His hands flail at his sides, his elbows tensed up tight against his ribcage, and Eddie wants to hug him. Urges like this come and go, and they’re as frustrating as they are confusing, especially when he feels incapable of seeing them through. Instead, Eddie relaxes his stance, taking a step back and leaning against the door. 

“I’m not trying to fuck with you, man, I just—” 

“You just don’t want to be here. With me.” 

Eddie reels, his head thunking against the wood of the door. “ _What_?” 

“C’mon, Eds. I know what this is.” He gestures between the two of them, so Eddie copies him, incredulous. 

“What… _what_ is? Us?” 

“Yes! Us!” Richie screeches, just as Eddie sees another tear track down his cheek. It makes him want to crawl into the bathtub for the rest of the weekend. “If there even is— It’s. Listen. I know you’re going through a divorce, and a lot of other—” Richie heaves a hard sigh, clenching his eyes shut. “I’m not holding you hostage, okay? I know you never made me any promises, and if this is all a mistake, you can stay here after this weekend, alright?”

Eddie’s whole body has gone cold, frozen, because there it is. He _is_ the problem. What he’s been doing these past few months, what he’s been withholding, what he said on the plane. It’s made Richie feel like he’s disposable. An experiment. A phase in Eddie’s life that’s just another mistake to add to the pile. Eddie wants to scream with how wrong he is. Every single fiber in Eddie’s body wants to reach out, and even through all the shit in his brain, he knows he needs to do… _something_. 

He’s reminded, sickenly, of that moment in the Townhouse. Richie, dripping wet and oblivious and ecstatic in victory, just watching him and waiting without knowing he was waiting. Now he knows, and it might just be too much. Eddie might be too much.

The relentless thumping of Eddie’s heart in his ears drives him on, pushes him away from the door, and Richie’s body flinches as he starts to move to close the gap between them. 

In the quiet, everything feels amplified. The shuffle of Eddie’s feet on the floor, Richie’s panicked breathing, the soft thump of Eddie’s hands landing on Richie’s chest, and Richie’s sharp intake of breath as a result. A sting of nausea tries to upset Eddie’s stomach, but for the first time in his life—for the first time since he looked at Richie as an adult and felt this overwhelming _something_ he’s never been able to put a name on—it doesn’t give him a single moment of pause. The boiling, bubbling thing deep in his stomach only propels him forward.

He slides his hands up to cup around the back of Richie’s neck, and Richie picks his head up to look. Their eyes meet so softly, so warmly. Eddie watches the bloodshot whites of Richie’s, the drooping bags below his glasses, and he swipes a gentle thumb under the black clunky rims before he presses up on his toes to bring their mouths together, like he wanted to all those months ago. 

Richie meets him with a soft _nnh_ , something smaller than a whimper, and it’s a zing to Eddie’s heart. He focuses on the soft feel of Richie’s lips and relaxes, his heart keeping a steady time, his ears buzzing with the slick sound of their first kiss. 

It’s so much better than he could have imagined, but somehow so normal. It’s as if they’ve been doing this for years, practiced and simple, lips sliding over each other softly and carefully, like Eddie is here to cheer Richie up, to pick up the pieces of his heart and usher him out of the bathroom and back into their room of friends. Like this is something practiced and therefore perfect, like Eddie knows just how to make Richie feel better, like he isn’t the cause of all this heart-ache, but the solution. Eddie keeps his eyes shut and imagines. He pretends. 

Richie’s arms loop around his waist and press, ever so gently, against the small of his back. Eddie feels the warmth there, from the palm of his hand, and thinks, just maybe, there’s no need to pretend. Maybe they can just have this. Step by step. Maybe it doesn’t have to be practiced to be perfect.

Still, a small bolt of fright shocks through Eddie’s stomach as he opens his eyes, worried the leper’s face will meet him, but when he blinks back the lustful blur, it’s nothing but Richie. Richie’s eyes are still closed tight, his eyelashes spread beautifully against his cheeks, his stubble rough and dark from the flight. Eddie scrapes a hand over his jaw just to feel it, and it pulls a full body shiver that Eddie can feel vibrate through his own chest. 

“Eds,” Richie sighs, the puff of air warm and safe on Eddie’s wet lips.

“I want this,” Eddie says quick, so Richie can’t question it again, even with the evidence of Eddie’s kiss still so clear between them. 

“Yeah,” Richie sighs, and Eddie laughs. Richie too. Both of them, standing in Ben and Bev’s bathroom, Richie’s hand gripped tight at Eddie’s hip, and Eddie’s hands sliding down to hold at Richie’s big shoulders. He rubs there, for a second, just to feel. 

“You okay?” he asks. He doesn’t know what he expects. 

Richie nods. Licks over his lips. “Yeah, I.” His throat works, bobs, and Eddie slips a finger up to trace the motion. “God, Eds.” 

“We can go. Back to Chicago,” Eddie offers, because he feels like a dick. He wants Richie to feel safe. To _be_ safe. Happy. Home, if he wants. Their… their home. 

Richie shakes his head, a smile still spread over his lips. Eddie wants to bite them. Not yet. But maybe soon. 

“No, no. We should get back out there.” 

“Right,” Eddie says, pulling back reluctantly, trying to memorize the feel of Richie’s arms around him. “I’m sure Bev’s already looking for us.” 

“Gotta get this party started, Spaghetti,” Richie says, and Eddie breathes a sigh of relief at how much he sounds like himself. Still, he takes a step forward, and brings a hand up to Richie’s face. He smoothes a palm up his chest first, up over his jaw, under his eyes to get the last of the moisture. He doesn’t say anything, but when Richie watches him, he feels like he knows. 

“Let’s fucking do it,” Eddie says, and whirls back toward the door. 

**

The whole night is the closest thing Eddie has ever felt to bliss in his life. It’s like being back at the Jade last fall, but without the terror and the confusion and the throbbing, desperate thing hanging in his chest whenever he looked at Richie.

Well. There’s still a little bit of that. But this time he knows Richie feels it right back. He’s not sure that’s _better_ , perse, but it’s good to not be alone. It’s good not to be scared. 

It’s all just so fucking _good_. 

Bill and Audra show up later that evening, and the introductions go better than Eddie would have thought. Audra is kind and beautiful and hilarious; she ribs Bill just as much as everyone else, and Richie decides he approves once she moves on to him, too. 

Bev makes them drinks and sets a stack of board games on a chair in the corner of the living room for after dinner. Ben makes them portobello mushrooms that are supposed to taste like steak, but really taste like giant sauteed mushrooms. Eddie doesn’t mind them; Myra tried them a few times whenever she was on a health kick, and now that he’s freer with his salt shaker, it turns out it’s actually quite delicious. Richie sneers at his all throughout the meal, but he eats more than half of it, probably because Eddie eats his. But if competition is what gets him to eat his vegetables, well. It’s a sacrifice Eddie is willing to make. 

Mike pulls in just as Bev is making them decide between Operation! and Clue, and Mike is anything but an asshole, so he picks Clue with the reasonable people. His hugs are warm and full of laughter, and Eddie loves listening to him tell stories of travel he’s heard a few times before because they’re automatically better in person. 

After hours of sipping on homemade mint juleps—which are disgusting—and mojitos—which are _really_ good, but make Eddie’s head swim with the combination of rum and sugar—Ben lights up a fire in the fireplace and they all crowd around like a bunch of kids. Richie sits on the floor between Eddie’s feet, and they chat like everything is normal.

“I don’t _hate_ them,” Eddie’s saying while Audra listens intently, her hand raised over Bill’s thigh like she’s just waiting for the punchline. “Horror just isn’t my… genre.” 

“Horror isn’t his _genre_ ,” Bill whispers into her ear, and she groans in defeat. 

“C’mon, Eddie, you don’t have to sugarcoat it for him. He’s heard way worse.” Audra cuddles into Bill’s side, and something snaps through Eddie’s chest like a rubberband. He glances down at where Richie is starting to nod off beneath him. His head is tipping from one side to the other, jerking back up quickly when he realizes it’s been drifting. His hands have stayed resolutely in front of him the whole time, and Eddie has tried not to notice, but he’s _noticed_.

Even after their kiss in the bathroom, Richie is still tentative. Eddie appreciates the thought, but a small—giant—part of him would love to be able to move freely with their affection, like Bill and Audra. Even like Ben and Beverly, whose restraint is admirable but wholly unnecessary. Eddie sees the shine in Ben’s eyes when Beverly reaches over to take his hand, when she slides fingers across his shoulder blades while he’s in the kitchen. It’s a touch he welcomes, but waits for, and Eddie’s more than happy for the both of them.

Eddie swallows down a huge gulp of water from his glass and tries not to think about it. There’s a long way to go. But he’s with his people. He’s safe. And Richie is here with him. And he’s here with Richie. 

Soon, the party peters out completely. Richie doesn’t have the chance to fall asleep against Eddie’s leg, because Ben beats him to it, snoring loudly in the recliner perched in the middle of them. Beverly breaks them up with promises of Stan and Patty over breakfast, and that seems enough to perk everyone up for their nighttime routines, despite the three pitchers of mojitos they finished altogether. Eddie doesn’t anticipate a hangover, but perhaps at least a stomachache from all the sugar. 

Everyone but Richie and Eddie got hotels in the surrounding area, so after they’ve bid their goodbyes, Eddie drags Richie’s exhausted body down the hall and into the bedroom. He shuts the door gently and tries not to think of the implications of them sharing a room. Ben’s house is gigantic, surely they could stay in different guest rooms if they wanted. Eddie’s given Beverly the full run-down—except for the Couch Incident, no one needs to know about that—and of course that probably means Ben knows, as well. But the rest of them? Eddie has no idea. And Eddie has no idea what he _wants_ them to know, either. 

Actually, he knows. He knows so deeply it makes him want to cry with the ache, when he really _thinks_ about it. He wants to be draped over each other on the couch. He wants to pass by Richie in the kitchen with a kiss to his cheek. He wants to look at Richie with a smile and know everyone _else_ knows what it means. But for now, the shared guest room assumptions will have to do. Besides, he has no idea how Richie feels about any of that. And if he were going to wager, he might bet that Richie doesn’t want anyone knowing until things are more… official. 

This is a celebration of Eddie’s divorce, after all. Debuting his brand new relationship might make Richie feel like the rebound. And _fuck_ , he’s the farthest thing from that. If anything, Myra was the rebound. The rebound from the trauma of losing everything that meant anything to him. Richie, included. 

Richie _especially_. 

Richie, who is brushing his teeth in the ensuite like he’s about to fall asleep in the sink at any moment.

“Need help there?” Eddie asks, and Richie’s eyes shock open.

“Hmmmf?” 

Eddie presses at his drooping elbow with a laugh, and Richie gets his shit together long enough to spit and rinse before pouring himself into the bed. 

Eddie goes through his own nighttime routine, including chugging an extra bottle of water, despite how he knows it’s going to make him get up to pee in the middle of the night. He fills up Richie’s bottle too, putting it on the table next to him, just in case he wakes up in the middle of the night along with Eddie. With the inevitable bathroom breaks, it’s pretty much a guarantee. He lays down next to Richie in bed, and tries to imagine what it would be like to cuddle up close. To fall asleep with Richie’s arms around him, and riding on the happiness bursting forth from his chest, his heart, his gut, he leans down and presses a kiss to Richie’s cheek. 

“Hmmm?” Richie mumbles again, but his eyes stay closed. 

“Go back to sleep,” Eddie tells him, and Richie doesn’t think twice. 

**

When he wakes, Richie’s already propped up in bed, his phone clutched tightly in his hand, his leg flung out of the comforter, just like he does at home. Eddie smiles into his pillow. 

“Mornin’,” he grumbles, and Richie turns softly to look at him. 

“Good morning. You feeling okay?” 

Eddie nods, pushing up on his elbows and rolling over. “I drank a lot of water last night.” 

“Seems the hydration fairy was in rare form. I too awoke to a fresh bottle of water at my bedside. Saved me quite the pain this morning, I think.” Richie’s smile is dorky and radiant, and Eddie shifts closer until their hair is overlapping on the pillows. He feels Richie’s body stiffen, so he flings a hand over his chest before he thinks better of it. 

“We’re old now. We need to follow up alcohol with water.” He wiggles his fingers until Richie gets the clue and tangles his own alongside them. Eddie’s dumb heart lurches. “I didn’t want you dealing with vomiting _and_ socializing in one day.” 

Richie hums. Eddie turns his head and sees Richie watching him. 

“You’re very considerate,” Richie says, his eyes bright and unfocused without his glasses. 

Eddie’s heart is at one hundred percent. Totally, foolishly, head-over-heels in love. 

So he leans over, slowly, carefully, maintaining eye contact, just in case Richie wants to bow out. He sucks in a breath through his nose, and Richie’s face doesn’t contort, or decay; it stays. It’s him. 

And Eddie fucking _loves_ him. 

This time, Richie seems a little more prepared. He moves to meet Eddie in the middle, his hand curling around the side of Eddie’s face, and this time, Eddie sighs into it. Richie’s mouth is warm, his breath a curdled odor as it wafts over Eddie’s lips, but even that he finds himself working past. It’s Richie. It’s Richie kissing him, holding him sure but soft, letting him move away if he needs. But he doesn’t need. 

Eddie lifts up a bit so he can hover over Richie’s mouth as they kiss, and when he’s finally feeling bold enough, he presses his tongue against the seam of Richie’s lips. That gets a gasp, but Richie acquiesces beautifully. Their noses drag against each other, back and forth as Eddie turns, then flips, and after a minute, he feels like they really have the hang of it. When he breaks away, Richie is smiling at him, and Eddie leans down to take more. This is _his_. 

“Shit,” Richie pants as his head falls back against his pillow, once Eddie really lets him go for good. “I just woke up and you’re already trying to kill me.” 

Eddie slides a hand down Richie’s chest. His heartbeat is jumping under Eddie’s palm, and Eddie huffs a hysterical laugh. 

“If that were true I’d let my hand keep going,” he says, a product of mirth rocketing straight from his mouth, but he hardly has cause to regret it. Not with the way Richie groans loudly, his chest shuddering under Eddie’s hand. 

“I need to eat something.” Richie drapes an arm across his eyes like a fairweather maiden. “I can’t deal with this on an empty stomach.” 

Eddie snorts and grabs at Richie’s hand to tug him out of bed. 

They take their time getting ready, and Eddie doesn’t feel a smidge guilty about it. Richie’s hands are free and loose in the morning, pinching at the skin of his arm, trailing down over his bare back when he pulls his shirt over his head to change. They’ve been coy about certain types of nudity, even after seeing each other’s dicks, but Eddie feels bold in the morning Montana light, with their friends downstairs waiting, with his divorce papers all the way back in Chicago, with the promise of a new, even stranger life awaiting him when he returns. He feels free, like Richie said. 

Free to be happy. Free to let his eyes roam over Richie’s chest in his white t-shirt. Free to press a tender kiss right above Richie’s nipple, to drag the skin of his lips over Richie’s neck and blink away any invading, panicking thought. 

Free from the control of anyone else but himself. 

As soon as they’re making their way out of the bedroom, Eddie is positively giddy with anticipation and relaxation, and then they turn the corner into the kitchen, and he sees the banner.

_~~Sorry about the~~ HAPPY DIVORCE!!! _

“What the—” He starts, but he’s interrupted by a chorus of his friend’s voices. 

It’s some bastardized version of “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow,” with Richie singing the high parts in an annoyingly, nasally version of his own shitty singing voice, and Stan abstaining, and Patty crowding in for a hug while she croons directly into his ear. It’s not exactly the way he imagined meeting her, his face red in embarrassment and shock and anger, but he gives her a beat before pulling back and pinwheeling his arms.

“Can you all _stop_ —” 

“No fucking _way_!” Stan snaps, and joins in with the chorus. 

When the singing is done, Bev does a little flourish, and then moves out of the way to reveal a full pot of coffee and a smorgasbord of mouth-watering breakfast food spread out over the counter. English muffins, fruit, bagels and cream cheese, smoked salmon and capers, homemade hollandaise sauce, bacon, sausage, and what looks like ten different kinds of toast and juice. Ben is perched at the edge of the stove in a dark blue apron, offering eggs made any which way, which seems to take precedence over embarrassing Eddie further, so he’s able to sneak behind Richie’s broad form and take a moment for himself. 

Unluckily, Richie notices immediately. He crowds him back into the corner, blessedly free from any interlopers. 

“How’d you like my acapella stylings?”

“Ugh,” Eddie groans, palming over his eyes and rubbing at where a headache is forming in his temples. He feels Richie’s hand come down soft on his shoulder, so he looks up.

“You need to escape?” 

The vein of consideration running through his voice makes Eddie want to cry. His whole chest swells, overwhelmed, and he tries to take a second to parse out what he’s even feeling. 

It’s been years since anyone has done anything like this for him. A few years ago he got a promotion at work—well-earned after late nights for almost a whole year straight—that was met with nothing but an excited slew of questions from Myra about how much of a raise it entailed. Despite the lukewarm congratulations she offered, Eddie had naively convinced himself all day that she might be planning something more involved for when he got home. When the house was empty and dark that night, he thought, _maybe this weekend_. But the weekend came and went without so much as a hug. 

Two weeks later, a new bedroom set arrived. Eddie had hid himself in the bathroom for half an hour, staring at the wall and trying not to scream. When the incessant knocking became too much, he had emerged, helped the moving men, and spent the rest of his Saturday and Sunday dismantling old furniture and, eventually, throwing his back out. 

Digging a little deeper through the flush of embarrassment overtaking him now, what remains is something more like… gratitude. The two times he considered divorce in New York, he always imagined he would end up alone. Alone in a sublet. Alone in the city. Alone in his bed, in his living room, in his kitchen making small meals and crouching over take-out boxes. Alone in his whole fucking life. It was enough to keep him from leaving. And when he really thinks about it, it’s what made him leave for real this time. It wasn’t just Richie, but all of them. Their voices over the phone, their texts and emails in his inbox, their offers of visits or pep talks or presents sent First Class USPS. Now there’s a whole buffet of celebration food in front of him, along with people who love him enough to embarrass themselves through a genuinely hideous rendition of a nonsensical song he’s always hated. 

So Eddie shakes his head and pulls a smile from the depths of his fluttery chest. 

“I’m good,” he says, and Richie’s face relaxes. Then Eddie has a thought; or rather, a deep, fuzzy need. “Can you, uh…?” 

He nudges his fingers against where Richie’s are dangling at his side, and Richie glances down with a pause. 

“Yeah?” 

Eddie breathes hard and wet. “Yeah.” 

“Then you bet, bud.” Richie lets their hands fall together, and when they turn around, Eddie’s heart beats a little more solidly in his chest. 

**

Eddie doesn’t drink very often. And truly, nearing the age of forty-one, he’s not quite sure why. He had his fair share of hangovers in college, but nothing that turned him off the prospect altogether. Myra always had a nice bottle of wine lying around for the random good occasion, but that never amounted to more than a glass and a half before they gave up and went to bed. When they were out at restaurants he always tended toward water, or iced tea, because Myra found drinking in public to be “gauche and unclassy.” 

With his friends, Eddie decides to let loose. He feels safe, and happy, and the conversation is flowing easily, so there doesn’t seem to be much to lose. Why not have some fun? Why not feel the warm buzz of alcohol flow through his veins? Why not let his hand drag over Richie’s thigh? Why not lean harder against him without paying attention to who is noticing, or who is giving him looks? 

Why not act like he has a… a boyfriend? Especially during this momentous occasion, the eve of his divorce? Why can’t he pretend like things are finally simple for all of them? Like they didn’t have to go through a whole boatload full of trauma just to get to this point? 

Eddie wants to be normal. He wants to be a man who drinks. 

So he keeps accepting cocktails that Ben is making, and he feels the buzz through his veins, and he drapes his arm across Richie’s thigh, and he leans a little harder into Richie’s chest, and he watches Richie smile and laugh with his friends and feels… Well.

The best he’s ever felt. 

“I’m not sure we’re staying put for too long,” says Audra, appropriately draped over Bill on the loveseat, swirling an olive in a glass. Eddie thinks she looks classy. Eddie thinks she looks like a fucking movie star, probably because she is. “I’m not a fan of London.”

She talks like one, too. 

“Right, because the people in LA are so much nicer,” Bill scoffs. Audra pats him on the shoulder, but smiles. 

“I _like_ LA. At least there’s sunshine year round. You actually get some Vitamin D from the window of your office while you’re hunched over your ancient type-writer.” She ducks down, whispering to Eddie conspiratorially. “You should see him after a few months abroad. He looks like a vampire crossed with polar bear. Sounds like one, too, when I wake him up at his desk.” 

Eddie snickers. Bill waves her off, then turns to Richie.

“How’s Chicago these days?” 

“Oh, fantastic,” Richie says, and Eddie’s heart picks up. Just the sound of Richie’s voice is doing it, rough and easy from the whiskey. He feels like a fucking teenage girl. “My agent’s set up some ‘return to stand up’ dates for me when I get back, but I think after that I might take another break. Figure out some other options.” 

And that makes it worse. Is _that_ what Richie was referencing on the plane? He hasn’t been keeping Eddie up on his career at all in the past few months, but Eddie has done the same. Neither of them have discussed much about their professional lives, besides the occasional story about their past or where they would love to be in ten years. For Eddie, that amounts to basically… who the fuck knows. For Richie, it amounts to directing. 

Eddie’s so fucking proud of him his whole chest could burst. 

Richie had told him about the stand up dates, since it includes travel, and Eddie will be alone in the apartment for a good two weeks while he’s gone. When Richie pitched it, Eddie thought it would be a good time to look for work. Go on interviews and decompress without worrying about Richie being around. Now, it’s yet another reason Eddie never wants to return home. Two weeks feels like a long fucking time, after spending a solid three months together. 

“You thinking about relocating? You could get a lot done in LA,” Bill says, and Eddie blinks, looking over at where Richie is, yet again, just shrugging. 

“I’ve certainly thought about it. I lived there for a few years when I was first starting out.” 

“You did?” Eddie asks, surprised. Richie turns to look at him with a wry smile. 

“Yep.” He takes a swig from his drink and laughs. “Don’t worry, I didn’t look much better with a farmer’s tan.” 

Eddie slaps at his thigh, then thinks better of it, rubbing over the rough spot. He hears Richie’s sharp inhale of breath, and realizes they’re in front of everyone. Bill and Audra don’t seem to notice, so Eddie shrinks back into the couch and tries to stay quiet. And tries _real_ hard not to think of a shirtless Richie with a dumb farmer’s tan. 

Bill’s hands are raised, his cheeks pinking from the alcohol.

“M’just saying,” he _just says_ , “you could look into the film industry a little more easily there. More opportunities. More exposure.” 

“I hear you,” Richie answers, and Eddie kind of wants to throw up. But before he has the chance to do that, or to ask more questions, Bev bursts forth from the kitchen with none other than a whole fucking _cake_. A gigantic smattering of candles and all. 

She opens her mouth with a wide grin and a twinkle in her eye, and that’s when Eddie sees his moment.

“If you start singing I’m pouring this martini straight onto your beautiful hardwood floors,” he says, and everyone goes quiet. 

There’s a pause Eddie would probably categorize as awkward if he didn’t know these fuckers so well, and then Richie lets out the most undignified snort he’s ever heard a human man make. Soon everyone is devolving into laughter, bent over in stitches until Bev has to walk further into the room to put the cake on the table before she drops it on the floor. 

Eddie blows out the candles while they all watch on, the fire crackling behind them, and he doesn’t even think about wishing for anything when everything he’s ever wanted is already laid out in front of him. 

**

Later, when they’re climbing back into bed, Eddie feels the earlier conversation niggling at him. He turns toward Richie, propped up on his elbow like usual, and hums. 

“So,” he starts, and Richie gives one of those dumb, blinding smiles. 

“So.” 

“Are you really thinking of, like… moving to LA? Someday?” 

Richie’s face does a little dance, his forehead pinching and his lips twitching. Eddie watches it wave over him, and tries not to flush when he darts his tongue out to flick at the corner of his mouth. 

“I don’t know,” he says, finally, and Eddie nods, like that’s a fucking answer. But then he follows it up with, “Do _you_ want to move to LA?” and Eddie’s ears fill with static. 

“What?” 

Richie blinks. “You— what? You what!” 

Eddie sits up, pulling one leg under him while he stares. 

“Why are you asking me?” he says, and Richie laughs, that kind of laugh that mostly pisses Eddie off, a show of his nonchalance in the face of Eddie’s never-ending irritation. 

“Why are you asking _me_ , bud?” 

“Stop fucking repeating me.” 

“You stop—” 

“Richie, I swear to god.” 

“Okay, alright,” Richie laughs. “I’m asking ‘cause I’d assume you would be… with me?” Richie says nervously, and Eddie finds himself surprised. 

“Oh,” he says, and Richie bites at his bottom lip. 

“Is that not—” 

“No, no, it’s… I mean. Yeah. I’d- I’d be with you,” Eddie says, and it feels like a weight lifts off his chest. 

“Okay, good. Not sure I could replicate your categorical organization of the kitchen spices without you there.” Richie says with a smile. He sits up, cross-legged, to face Eddie, and Eddie’s reminded of sleepovers and whispered secrets across Richie’s bed in Derry. Eddie still wants to hear all of Richie’s secrets. He looks down at Richie’s leg hair and wants to kiss him. They should have done that as kids, too. It might have been less complicated.

Or not. Who the fuck knows in Derry. 

So when Richie asks, after a pause, “Do you like Chicago?” he doesn’t really think over what the actual city offers him. Sure, there’s late take-out and museums and shitty, confusing traffic, just like New York. There are probably jobs he can find once he actually looks. There are nice restaurants and clubs and movie theaters and _actual_ theaters, if he can get Richie to a play one of these days. There are over-priced apartments and condos and houses and stretches of green tucked between the skyscrapers and wind so cold and blustery it will inevitably make him want to never leave whatever apartment or condo or house he and Richie end up in. 

The thing is, LA probably has a lot of the same shit. Or maybe it’s wholly different, who the fuck knows. Maybe it’s as bad as Derry—though Eddie doubts it—or better than Chicago or New York or Seattle or fucking Houston, but Eddie doesn’t really care. Derry was goddamn miserable, but with Richie, everything still seemed possible. He’s starting to remember the feeling. 

So Eddie doesn’t really answer. He just lunges. 

He slams into Richie’s face with a graceless _oomph_ , their teeth clacking with the force, but Richie’s laughter vibrates between them, so Eddie sinks into it instead of apologizing. It’s faster than their last kisses, desperate and wet and messy, but Eddie doesn’t actually mind it. In fact, the whole of his body is humming with something dangerously close to pleasure. After Richie reaches between them to take off his glasses and place them on the bedside table, his hands return more generously. They run all over Eddie’s body, down the lines of his back and the curves of his hips. He squeezes at Eddie’s ass, just once, and Eddie takes it as an invitation and climbs into his lap. 

Things sort of spiral from there. Richie just feels so _good_. So solid and malleable and responsive, so eager to touch while letting Eddie maintain control. He’s so fucking warm. Eddie never wants to leave his arms. 

“You’re so _warm_ ,” Eddie says into his mouth, to which Richie just kind of snuffles, and Eddie presses his hands harder into the divots of Richie’s jaw. His hips hold Eddie perfectly, the points of his fucking bony ankles poking into Eddie’s ass, but it feels so good Eddie can barely breathe. And then he realizes— 

He really can’t fucking breathe. 

He snaps open his eyes in a panic, but it’s Richie, it’s just Richie, and that’s a relief, even if his breath is wheezing painfully in his chest. Richie’s face is pink and flushed and confused when he pulls back, but he doesn’t scramble like he has before. 

At least, from what Eddie can tell. He has no idea what the fuck is happening, but his whole body feels seized up, stuck, stuttering right where it was moving so freely. 

His head is swimming when Richie’s hands wrap gently around his hips, smoothing up his back in one solid line. He makes a soft shushing, and Eddie wants to tell _him_ to shush, and that shock of anger-filled adrenaline somehow… helps. 

“Eds,” Richie says softly, and Eddie opens his eyes. When the fuck did he close them? “Eddie, you’re alright.” 

“It’s- it’s—” 

“You’re alright, you’re okay,” Richie repeats, circling through the same motion, and then his mouth sneaks up under Eddie’s chin, pressing a tender kiss there, and he’s so— 

He’s so fucking warm. 

“Rich,” Eddie sighs. Richie goes slowly, easing Eddie off his lap until his ass hits the bed, and then their legs and arms are tangled awkwardly, but Eddie edges back forward to stay close. 

“It’s okay, see? You’re okay.” Eddie sees his smile, the whites of his teeth in the light of the lamp, which is shining back over Richie’s shoulder, and then everything seems to come back into focus. Richie nods, like he knows. “Let’s lie back, huh?” 

Eddie blinks, considering that, but once he figures out he can still stay tucked under Richie’s arm that way, he concedes. Richie slides them both down, their foreheads pressed together, facing each other on their pillows, just like they were this morning. Richie’s hand finds his jaw, and Eddie can’t help himself. He tips his mouth up, meeting Richie in another kiss. 

They linger like that for longer than Eddie intends, pecking softly at each other, their touches languid and easy, and it brings Eddie completely back to life. He doesn’t feel tired, but his body is lazy. Heavy, stunted with emotion he somehow conjured unintentionally. Eddie pulls Richie’s bottom lip between his and sucks, and that makes Richie groan. 

“Can’t get enough,” Richie huffs against him when they part, and it makes Eddie smile. 

“Unf, sorry—”

“Shut up, you’re fine,” Richie says, though it’s quiet and soft. “We’ll just do what feels good, yeah? What feels good to you?” 

“You,” Eddie says dumbly, and Richie laughs. 

“You too, Eds.” His hand grips tight around Eddie’s shoulder. He steals a kiss against his temple.

“I wanna,” Eddie starts, then wonders if it’ll be too much. But Richie can’t let shit go. 

“You wanna…?” 

“Touch you,” Eddie finishes, his face flushing. It’s like someone dipped him in an ice bath and then lit him on fire. His body is racing to keep up, but he knows what he wants. It’s what he’s been thinking of since this morning. Since his hand lingered heavily on Richie’s bare chest, since he seriously considered dragging it under the sheets until he was feeling Richie in his hand. 

Memories of Richie on their couch back home flood his mind, his hands and his mouth and the way he groaned, the way he pulled his leg up, and his— and— 

“Richie,” Eddie says again, and Richie pulls away and flops onto his back.

“Here,” he says, pushing at the waistband of his pants until they’re down around his thighs. “You can… uh. You can touch me. If you want.” 

When Eddie looks over at him, his eyes are clenched shut, his dick partly soft and gorgeous, lying against his thigh, lightly curved up, and Eddie blinks.

“You sure?” he asks, because he doesn’t want Richie doing this just because he’s fucking panicking. But Richie huffs a self-conscious laugh.

“Yeah, man.” He turns to meet Eddie’s eyes, and Eddie’s heart pounds hard against his ribs. “I’ve been thinking about it for—” He stops, swallows, and shakes his head lightly against the pillow. “I’m sure, alright? Trust me.” 

So Eddie trusts him. He’d always trust Richie, when he thinks about it. He trusted Richie with his life, down in the sewers. He trusted Richie when he told him he was brave, when he assured him he could do it. And yeah, things went a little haywire there for a second, but he brought it back in the end. And he could save Richie, too. Maybe he can give Richie what he wants. 

He reaches over to drag his fingers lightly over Richie’s cock, and Richie bites hard into his bottom lip, whining very softly. Eddie wants to kiss him again, but decides to focus on one thing at a time. Multi-tasking seems to get him in trouble. But he’s feeling better, so he leans up slightly on his left arm to get a better view. And then he wraps his fingers around Richie more surely. 

“Oh,” Richie says, small and surprised, so Eddie keeps going. He gets a hold of Richie’s cock in his palm and strokes up, just once, just to test out the feeling. And it’s— 

_Fuck_ , it’s _good_. It’s hot, the touch of their skin together, the drag of his grip up over the head of Richie’s dick. It’s also dry, so Eddie goes slowly. Up and down, gentle, careful, watching Richie’s face for any sign of discomfort, but all Richie gives him is tiny little whimpers and overwhelmed puffs of breath. He’s getting harder the longer Eddie goes, until Eddie licks his lips, and he feels Richie twitch, and then a bead of precome emerges from the slit. 

“Richie,” he sighs, and looks up again to see Richie watching him intently, his pupils blown, his stupid hands shoved uselessly at his sides, like he’s too afraid to touch. All Eddie wants is to feel him. To have Richie’s hands on him while he’s touching him, but that’s too much right now. He needs to take it slowly, understand his limits. He needs to get a handle on this. 

For now, he knows he likes this. 

Richie’s beautifully responsive, just like he is when they kiss, whenever Eddie touches him, no matter where. His cock is hard and leaking by the time Eddie pulls back from the nearly torturous handjob, and he doesn’t think before he drops his head down to lick at the moisture. 

“Eddie _fuck_ , oh my god—” 

“Sorry, sorry.” Eddie licks the taste off his lips anyway, savoring it. Richie’s eyes scan the movement.

“You… are so fucking hot,” he says, and Eddie blinks at him, then smiles.

“Yeah?” 

Richie flicks his head in a nod, and Eddie can’t help but kiss him. Richie’s the one who lingers this time, moaning into his mouth, and it’s then Eddie realizes he can taste himself. That sends an entirely unfamiliar flush through his body, so he pulls back before it becomes too much. He doesn’t want to leave Richie hanging, though. 

“You’re— I really love, uh. I like that,” Eddie says, his eyes glancing down to where Richie is still hard between them. Richie’s head hits the pillow, and he laughs, and Eddie feels so giddy with anticipation and arousal and love that he’s a little worried he’s about to melt into the mattress. 

“You want me to finish myself off?” 

“No,” Eddie says quick. Richie snorts.

“Alright, alright, up to you,” he says. Eddie frowns down at his dick. 

“It’s— do you have any… uh?”

Richie’s eyebrows go up, and then he rolls off the bed to find his bag. His gait is crooked and awkward with his dick hard, but Eddie watches him go, his t-shirt hanging over his bare ass. It’s pale and covered in a thin layer of hair, and just like Richie’s legs, Eddie wants to drag his hands over the expanse of it. He wonders how Richie would sound if he licked there. If he spread him open and touched where he’s clearly tender and sensitive. Eddie saw him on the couch, rubbing at it just before he went off. Eddie wants to try it himself. 

Eddie bites back a groan, and adjusts himself in his sleep pants. When Richie comes back, it’s with a small bottle clutched in his hand, and that train of thought ends. For now.

“Did you prepare for this?” Eddie asks with amusement, but Richie kind of shrugs, which sends another bolt of heat up his spine. 

“I didn’t know what we would get up to after the whole jerking-off session,” Richie says, the first time he’s acknowledged it since it happened, and Eddie grabs for his leg, desperate for a point of contact to ground him. This is all so fucking real, all of a sudden. The months without any type of sex or kissing—but an unintentional acknowledgment of their _something_ -ness by living together, Eddie’s divorce, their unfamiliar intimacy—felt like they were leading up to all this, and the reality of it is smacking him upside the face. Eddie’s about to make Richie come. Richie is popping the cap on a bottle of lube and slick up his cock, anticipating Eddie’s hand back on him.

Richie _wants_ this. He said he’s been thinking about it.

_Fuck_. 

Eddie feels himself hard and aching in his own pants, but Richie doesn’t say anything if he notices. He just slathers some lube across his hand and pumps himself a few times until Eddie has the balls to reach over. Has the courage to ask, “What do you like?” 

Richie makes another one of his little noises, a cross between a gasp and a laugh.

“This is, uh. This is good.” He watches Eddie’s ministrations this time, faster and more sure, stroking up until he can cup around the head, and then back down, pulling skin with him the whole way, softer and easier with some moisture. Richie hisses and squirms on the bed. 

“What else?” he asks, because he wants to hear more. He wants Richie to give him a clue, because Jesus fucking Christ is he clueless. Lord knows he never asked Myra what she wanted, and she certainly never said. That was his fault, he supposes. He never told her either. And if he’s going into this sexual relationship full force—as fast as he can, at least—then he’s going to try to make it better.

It has to be better. 

It already is. 

“I don’t know, uh.” Richie bites at his lip, his hips bucking into Eddie’s fist, and Eddie leans down to kiss over his nipple, through his shirt. “How much am I allowed to say here?”

“Anything,” Eddie huffs, desperate. “Please, just—”

“Okay, okay, I, I like to be fingered,” Richie grunts, like it’s paining him to say. 

“Fuck,” Eddie spits, his mouth wet and wanting.

“Yeah, yeah, I like anything in me, really. I sometimes, _hah_ , just like that, yeah, fuck, Eds,” he sighs, he moans, he whines when Eddie goes a little faster, applies a bit more pressure. “I sometimes just like to touch myself down there, like, put a finger over myself. Sometimes that gets me there.” 

His eyes are heavy on Eddie, like it’s a challenge, and this one Eddie wants to meet. 

“You want me to touch you?” Eddie asks, knowing he’s going to do it, but needing to hear Richie. 

“Yeah, _fuck_ , yeah, if you—” 

Eddie releases Richie’s dick for a fraction of a second, leaving him wanting, so he can move his wet fingers down to cup around his balls. He imagines it’s his mouth, sucking at the skin, tasting him. Then he keeps going until he feels Richie’s puckered rim. It pulls a groan from him, and Richie follows suit. He circles a finger, not pressing in, just feeling, and brings his free hand to curl back around Richie’s cock. 

“Oh god, oh god, oh god,” Richie’s saying as Eddie’s hands trace a dirty trail. Eddie can _feel_ him clenching, wanting to pull his fingers in, asking for him, but he’s not going to give it to him. He wants to tease. Maybe that’s fucked up, but feeling and seeing and hearing Richie this desperate is doing something to him. 

He shifts his hips on the bed until his cock is pressed against the side of Richie’s thigh in his pants. It’s an awkward angle and he probably can’t keep at it for too much longer, but it doesn’t seem like he’ll need to.

“I’m going to come in my pants,” he tells Richie, and Richie’s cock jerks _hard_ in his hand, and then Richie’s slamming a hand over his mouth to muffle the noise. 

“Fuck, Eds, that’s so— oh _fuck_.” And he’s coming all over Eddie’s hand. At the last second, Eddie panics and slips a finger inside, just past the tight circle of muscle in Richie’s ass, and Richie bucks harder, ropes of come splattering all over his t-shirt and in his pubic hair. 

He keeps circling, loving the feel of Richie around his finger, of Richie wanting him so badly that he’s thrashing, his dick still twitching in the last throes of his orgasm. He thrusts his hips against Richie’s thigh, pressing his hard cock through the fabric and trying to keep his head on straight. 

“Eds,” Richie sighs, sounding fucked-out, and Eddie’s brain flashes with images he can’t control. Richie underneath him. Richie’s mouth on him. His mouth on Richie. His mouth on Richie’s dick, on Richie’s hole, eating Richie out like he doesn’t have a care in the world, burying his face and feeling Richie clench against his tongue. He thinks of kissing Richie, of Richie in his lap just like he’s held Eddie there, their hips colliding, on top of each other in bed. He thinks of being inside Richie, of fucking him hard, of fucking him soft, angling inside him just right to make him come without a hand on him.

He humps Richie’s leg with a fervor, clenching his eyes closed and letting Richie’s cock slide out of his hand. Richie’s arm awkwardly snakes around him, rubbing up and down his back, urging him on. 

“Eds, come all over me,” he says, and Eddie moans. “Please.” 

“Fuck,” he warbles, thrusting once, twice, three times more before he starts to feel himself let go.

Just as he’s coming, he thinks of Richie inside him, over him, pounding into him, their skin slapping, their bodies so woven together that he can hardly tell where he ends and Richie begins. 

“Rich, Richie, god,” he huffs, burying his face into Richie’s side, tucking his nose into his armpit to smell him, to be surrounded by him, by his scent, by the small whispers of encouragement. It’s gross and intimate and so so close to perfect that Eddie almost bursts into tears. 

“You’re so good,” Richie’s saying when he comes to, and Eddie groans into the fabric of Richie’s shirt, ruined from all the come. “God, Eds, you’re so fucking good.” 

Eddie looks up blearily and sees Richie shining down on him. 

They clean up separately in the bathroom, Richie changing out of his shirt and Eddie his pants. When they get back in bed, Eddie feels like he’s been hit with a truck, so he curls up along Richie’s side without a second thought. Richie lifts his arm to tuck him more comfortably, and Eddie realizes, with great pleasure, that they fit together exceptionally well. 

“I don’t care where we live,” he says after a few minutes, remembering the conversation that started this. He’s not even sure Richie is still awake, his breathing a soft and steady rhythm under Eddie’s hand. But he snuffles a quiet, “Me neither, babe,” and Eddie falls into sleep with a smile. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to the lovely [Alec](https://archiveofourown.org/users/queermccoy) for the beta and all the exclamation points ily. 
> 
> You can find me on Tumblr at [tinyangryeddie](https://tinyangryeddie.tumblr.com/) or Twitter, where I'm [camerasparring](https://twitter.com/camerasparring)!


End file.
